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THE 

TEMPLE OF GOD; 

OR 

THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 

AND 

COMMUNION OF SAINTS, 
IN ITS NATURE, STRUCTURE, AND UNITY, 



BY 

CHARLES PETTIT M'lLVAINE, D. D., D. C. L. 
km 

Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in Ohio. 




PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL BOOK SOCIETY, 

I N 

PHILADELPHIA: 
1224 CHESTNUT STREET. 

1860. 



i ~? 



Wtoo 

M»7 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by 

THE PKOTESTANT EPISCOPAL BOOK SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA, 

in the Clerk's Office of the Eastern district of Pennsylvania. 

COLLINS, PRINTER. 



CONTENTS. 

Page 
Chap. I. The Essential Nature of the Church, - - - 7 

II. The Foundation and Materials of the building, - 15 

III. The Instrumentality of Faith, 22 

IV. The Church as Visible and Invisible, - - - - 36 

V. The same subject continued, ------- 50 

VI. The Unity of the Church, 69 

VII. Concluding Observations, ------- 91 

With an Appendix, ---------- 115 



PEEF ACE. 

" For lack of diligent observing the difference be- 
tween the Church of God, mystical, and visible, 
the oversights are neither few nor light that have 
been committed." Of the truth of these words of 
Hooker, as well in application to these times, as his 
own, we have no question. There is at this time 
not only the lack of diligently observing the differ- 
ence mentioned ; but there is among us a decided 
and diligent effort to treat it as a fiction, and thus in 
in the face of our church-standards, and great writers, 
to represent the Church visible and mystical as 
identical and commensurate ; in other words, that all 
who belong to the former, belong also to the latter. 
" The oversights " and false views, arising from this 
very serious error "are neither few, nor small." 
They affect the whole system of Gospel doctrine. 
They change materially the answer to the question, 
What it is to be a Christian. If the Church be the 
body of Christ, it must be a living body and its 
members, living members. And if the visible 
Church, and the true church or body of Christ, be 
identical, then all its members, however ungodly, as 
multitudes of them are, must be living members of 
Christ. Hence follows an invariable connection of 
Baptism with spiritual regeneration and of all 
sacramental observances with spiritual sanctification. 



VI PREFACE. 

Hence the confounding of the form of godliness 
with its power, and the substitution of a religion of 
external signs and ordinances for that inward and 
spiritual grace in the heart without which we are 
dead before God. Thus we take the direction of 
Kome, where the logical consequences of such views 
are displayed in all their revolting consistency and 
fullness. It is to resist such evil tendencies by pro- 
moting the more " diligent observing the difference 
between the Church of God mystical and visible," 
the want of which in his day, the "judicious Hooker" 
lamented, that these pages are put forth, with an hum- 
ble prayer and hope that the Lord and Head of the 
Church will be pleased to use them, in some measure, 
for the promotion of the truth, the guidance of his 
people, and the furtherance of the highest interests 
of his kingdom. 



THE TEMPLE OF GOD. 



4 — ♦ »+» 



CHAPTER I. 

THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF THE CHURCH. 

" Te are the temple of the living God," said Paul 
to the Christians in Corinth. The same he said of 
the whole fellowship of true Christians, Jews and 
Gentiles. — They were (i a holy temple in the Lord," 
" Built upon the foundation of the Apostles and 
Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner 
stone/' they were "builded together, for a habitation 
of God through the Spirit."* Such was then the 
only true Temple ; though when Paul thus wrote, 
the Temple in Jerusalem was still standing; its 
daily sacrifice was still offered; its numerous 
priests still ministered. Such is still the only true 
Temple. 

Under the previous dispensation, when almost 
every spiritual truth had its material form and ex- 
pression, in the types and symbols of the ceremonial 
law, the special dwelling of God, by His Spirit; in 
* Eph. ii. 19—22. 



8 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHUECH AND 

the hearts of the true Israel, the spiritual children of 
believing Abraham, and thus his dwelling " among 
them/' as composing one household of faith, was 
signified by a visible sign, a magnificent house, in 
the holy city, of the holy land, of the peculiar peo- 
ple; and in that house, a Mercy-Seat; and above 
that symbol of the throne of the reconciled and 
gracious Jehovah, a visible Glory, the sacramental 
sign of the special presence of God. 

And because that holy house, so inhabited, was 
thus associated, by divine institution as "a figure of 
the true," with the real temple, God's true people, 
it received the name of that which it signified, and 
was called the Temple of God. In the passing 
away of that whole dispensation, that temple with all 
its typical observances, ceased. There was no suc- 
cessor. But in the true temple there was no essential 
change. It continued as ever of old, and as it has 
ever since been described under the promise, " I will 
dwell in them, and walk in them, and they shall be 
my people, and I will be their God," — a " household 
of faith," a people " not of the world," in whose 
hearts God abides by the indwelling of His Spirit. 
A spiritual church, there had always been in the 
world since the covenant of grace began. The time 
came when the bounds of its habitation were to be en- 
larged; when the privileges of such a relation to God 
were to be pressed upon the acceptance of all nations. 
An entire change of outward economy was therefore 
necessary. Hence, were laid aside the forms of the 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 9 

Jewish, dispensation, as embodied in the visible 
temple, with its altars and sacrifices and priesthood 
and cumbrous ceremonial, confined, to a single na- 
tion; and in their stead there was put on, that 
simple exterior of the Christian Church, which, 
adapts it alike to all people, and under which 
no place has any peculiar privilege, no earthly con- 
dition or office any special acceptance with God. 
Thus according to our Lord's words to the woman 
of Samaria, the time came, and now is, when nothing 
is required to constitute a "true worshiper," except 
that he worship God "in spirit and in truth." And 
thus was proclaimed, what Peter had such difficulty 
in learning, " that God is no respecter of persons ; 
but in every nation, he that feareth Him and worketh 
righteousness is accepted with Him." 

The true people of God in all the world are "the 
Temple of the living God." 

That we may the better realize the propriety with 
which the Church of God, composed, not of visible 
walls, but of invisible minds, is called His Temple, 
we must divest ourselves of the habit of thought 
arising out of the almost exclusive application of 
that name to visible structures of man's workman- 
ship. The temple of Solomon, built under divine 
direction, a wonder of the world for grandeur and 
magnificence, and inhabited by that visible and 
miraculous glory of God, is supposed to have em- 
bodied the most literal idea of a temple. Any depar- 
ture from the material and visible character of that 



10 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHUBCH AND 

structure, under the name of a Tempie, seems 
a departure from the literal to the figurative ; and 
when we come to speak of a collective body of the 
people of God, as His Temple, and especially when 
the Scriptures speak of every true child of God, 
as His Temple, the expression seems to have de- 
parted very far from a literal, and to have taken on a 
very figurative or accommodated sense. 

Now in this, we apprehend, there is misapprehen- 
sion. The house erected by Solomon was the 
Temple of God, not because of its walls, and courts, 
and apartments, and altars, but because the 
Schechinah of God's presence, appeared therein, 
indicating that God dwelt among his people Israel. 
Suppose those walls and altars all cast down, and 
every stone removed, and that glory still there! 
There would still have been, as much as ever, the 
Temple, the habitation of the mighty God of Jacob. 
It was simply that glorious appearing of His pre- 
sence which made the tabernacle in the wilderness 
as much the temple of God, as the statelier and more 
permanent habitation in Jerusalem. It was the 
same presence that made the place where Moses 
stood on Mount Horeb, when God appeared to him 
in a flame of fire, out of the midst of the bush, the 
temple, for a time, of the living God."* God was 
there. Jacob found the temple of God in the 
way from Beersheba to Haran, where no house was, nor 
altar ; nothing but the ground he lay on to sleep, and 

* Exod. iii. 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 11 

the stones lie placed for lis pillow. But God appeared 
to him there. And Jacob awaked and said : " Surely 
the Lord is in this place." And, because the Lord 
was there, he said : " How dreadful is this place ; 
this is none other but the House of God" " And he 
called the name of the place Bethel"* And had he 
surrounded it with courts and buildings as noble as 
those of the temple in Jerusalem, it could not have 
been more really, however it would have been 
more visibly , "the temple of the living God." 

Let us keep it distinctly in our mind, that it is not 
a visible building, but the special presence of God, 
that makes any place the temple of God, just as it is 
the presence of the King that makes the court ; and 
thus we shall see the strictly literal propriety with 
which every true servant of God is called "the 
Temple of the Holy Ghost." God dwelleih in him by 
Mis Spirit. And hence the whole community of 
God's true people is His Temple, because, saith St. 
Paul, they are "a habitation of God, through the 
Spirit."f And in the same way ; St. Paul says to the 
Corinthians : "Ye are the temple of the living God," 
giving for explanation and evidence the promise of 
God " I will dwell in them" Hence the human na- 
ture of our Lord Jesus is called the temple of his 
body, because therein " dwelleth all the fullness of 
the Godhead, bodi]y.":{: 

Thus we have ascended to the highest, as the 
most literal, temple of God. In the human nature 

* Gen. xxviii. 10-22. f Eph. ii. 22. } Col. ii. 9.— John ii. 21. 



12 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH AND 

of our Kedeemer, dwells, literally, truly, perfectly 
inseparably, without distinction of person or con- 
fusion of nature, God. Christ is " God manifest in 
the flesh." Never was there, never can there be 
"a habitation of God" like that. In the temple 
of Jerusalem, God dwelt only as the Schechinah 
over the mercy-seat, which was the sign of his presence 
with his people. " God dwelleth not in temples made 
with hands." But in our Lord Jesus, he dwells in 
ail the fullness of his nature and all the majesty of 
the Godhead ; so that the whole nature of the " Man, 
Christ Jesus, born of Mary, is essentially and eter- 
nally united with the whole divine nature of the 
Lord God Almighty, who is "from everlasting." 
Hence that human nature of Christ, in the days of 
his humiliation, and now in the time of his glory, 
was, and is, the temple of God, as nothing else ever 
was, or could be. Types of that temple, there have 
been ; resemblance is impossible. St. John describ- 
ing the New Jerusalem, said "I saw no temple 
therein, far the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb 
are the temple of it."* John saw in the heavenly 
church no temple such as men were wont to call by 
that name, or such as that name would be associated 
with naturally in the mind of a Jew. But he saw the 
one real temple — " the Lord God Almighty and the 
Lamb;" — or, as we understand his meaning, the 
Man Christ Jesus ; and dwelling in him, " the full- 
ness " of the Lord God Almighty. 

* Rev. xxi. 22. 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 13 

Now, it is by union to Christ, that each individual 
believer, is in a subordinate, yet very real, sense, 
the temple of God. That union formed, on the part 
of the believer, by his faith which led him to Christ, 
and on Christ's part by the communication of His 
Spirit to the believer, consists in his having the 
Spirit of Christ. He is the temple of God, deriva- 
tively, as Christ is, essentially. — In the former case, 
the Spirit abides as a gift from God's sovereign grace, 
through Christ; but yet as an inhabitant only, 
capable of being withdrawn. In the other, dwells 
the fullness of the divine nature by being personally 
and essentially united therewith to all eternity. 
Excepting this latter and infinitely most glorious, 
was there ever a temple, so called, that could com- 
pare with the former, in excellence and glory ? 
Houses made with hands, no matter to what extent 
the arts and riches of men have been expended on 
them, are temples, at best, but in a very figurative 
sense. God in no degree dwells therein. Solomon's 
magnificent sanctuary, in all its glory was not 
arrayed as is the humblest child of God, an intelligent, 
immortal mind, raised from the death of sin, created 
anew in the likeness of God, n God's workmanship," 
as nothing else among his creatures can be ; God's 
Spirit inhabiting there. True, like the tabernacle in 
the wilderness, which shewed, in outward appearance, 
only the rough covering of badger-skins, it is seen 
during the earthly state, under the vestments of a 
frail mortality, full of infirmities and defiled with 

2 



14 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH AND 

much impurity. But within, is God's wonderful 
handiwork in the inwrought beauty of a personal 
holiness — imperfect as yet, but going on unto perfec- 
tion against that day when the tabernacle of the 
wilderness shall give place to " a building of God 
eternal in the heavens."* 

* "What resemblance, (asks Bishop Andrews^ is there be- 
tween a body and a temple ? Or how can a body be so termed ? 
Well enough ; for I ask what makes a temple. Is it not a tem- 
ple because it is the house of God ? because God dwelleth there ? 
For as that wherein man dwells is a house ; so that wherein 
God dwells is a temple properly, be it place or be it body. * Know 
ye not ( saith the Apostle J that your body is the temple of the 
Holy Ghost.' A body, then, may be a temple, even this of ours. 
And if ours, in which the Spirit of God dwelleth only by some 
gift or grace, with how much better right his body, in whom the 
whole Godhead in all the fullness thereof dwelleth corporally, by 
nature, by personal union, not fas in usj by grace, by participa- 
tion of it only. Alas, ours are but tabernacles under goat skins ; 
His, the true, the marble, the cedar temple indeed." — (Bishop 
Andrews' Sermons, No. 10.^ 

In our Homily on the ' ' Place and Time of Prayer, ' ' we read 
' ' that the chief and special Temples of God, wherein He hath 
greatest pleasure and most delighteth to dwell are bodies and 
minds of true Christians and the chosen people of God." 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 15 



OHAPTEE II. 

THE FOUNDATION AND MATERIALS OF 
THE CHURCH. 

We are now prepared for a nearer contemplation 
of the Church as the Temple of God. Let us con- 
sider, therefore, 

1. The Foundation. It is built on Christ alone. 
"Other foundation can no man lay than that is 
laid, which is Christ Jesus." The context of this 
verse, shows that it is "God's building," God's 
Church, of which the Apostle speaks. The foun- 
dation is all laid. We have nothing to do with it, 
but to build on it. It is not a mere doctrine con- 
cerning Christ, but it is Christ himself. Not merely 
his office and work, but his person. Not merely 
what he has done, but what he is. "Behold (saith 
the Lord,) I lay in Zion, a chief corner-stone, elect, 
precious ; and he that believeth on him shall not be 
confounded.* 

"In him, (said St. Paul,) all the building, fitly 
framed together groweth unto a holy temple in the 
Lord."f "All the building" every least part of it, each 

* 1 Pet. ii. 6. f E ph- "• 21. 



16 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH AND 

member of the Church is here represented as being 
framed, with every other, in Christ. All are " builded 
together " for a habitation of God, but only as each 
member is builded "in him" Thus it grows "a 
spiritual house," "a holy temple in the Lord," 
" Jesus Christ himself, the chief corner stone " he 
that was, and is, and ever shall be, once the crucified 
now the glorified and ever living to make inter- 
cession for us — "The Life" — "made unto us, of 
God, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and re- 
demption," "the beloved" in whom we are accepted; 
the heir of the kingdom, with whom, the believer is 
a "joint heir" and "in whom" we have obtained 
an inheritance, if we be "found in him," he himself 
is the whole foundation. True, St. Paul, in the very 
same connection of the verses in which he thus 
speaks of Christ as "the chief corner stone," in 
whom all the building is framed, &c, says that this 
"household of God" is "built upon the foundation 
of Apostles and Prophets ;" Jesus Christ being their 
corner stone, as well as of all other parts of the 
building. But this does not conflict with the asser- 
tion that our Lord — Christ, is the only foundation. 
The foundation of Apostles and Prophets is not 
what they are, or what they did; but what they 
taught concerning Christ. They furnished their 
foundation in teaching the great fundamental truth 
that there is no foundation for the hope of the sinner 
and no foundation for the church, as the company of 
redeemed sinners, but Christ ; and that he is a foun* 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 17 

dation that cannot be moved, so that whosoever 
buildeth thereon "shall not be confounded." On 
that doctrine of the Apostles and Prophets, the Church 
is built ; but not on them. It is not said of them, 
as of Christ — " In whom all the building fitly framed 
together/' &c. They laid foundation- work doctrinally; 
Jesus, persona lly. They, in what they spake of him — 
He, in what he is, and hath done, for us. 

Let us take care that we get the whole literal 
reality of this truth that Jesus Christ, himself, is the 
sole foundation. There is a figure of speech in 
calling him a corner stone — the foundation of a build- 
ing ; but there is no departure from the most literal 
use of language in saying that the whole Church is 
even more immediately and perfectly dependent on 
him, personally, at every moment of its existence, in 
its every part and member, for all its being, and as 
well all its life, than any house of man is dependent 
on its foundation. In the latter, one stone lies on 
another and supports that above it, and only some 
of those beneath all, come into immediate contact 
with, and direct resting upon, the foundation. But 
in the house of God, every stone, every member is 
in immediate dependence on, in direct union and com- 
munication with, Christ. They that were first added 
to the Church are in no sense between us who have 
been added last, and Christ. To him personally, all 
come individually, by the faith of each heart ; and 
to him, all so coming are joined immediately by his 

Spirit given directly unto each. He is the very 
B 



18 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHUKCH AND 

being of his Church. Not only its author and finisher ; 
not only its support and light and defence; but it is 
so " built up in him," that it is mystically himself — 
all its parts being members of him as all branches 
of the vine, are the vine. 

Does the single christian say, "for me to live is 
Christ?" The whole mystical union of true chris- 
tians, composing the Church of God, must say the 
same. He is the life of the Church, only as He 
gives life to each of its members. It is only because 
all the building is, in every individual part, "framed 
together in him," in him as its righteousness, in 
him as its sanctification, in him as all its strength 
and life, that it "groweth unto an holy temple in the 
Lord." "He that abideth in me and I in him," that 
is the true description of what Christ is, as the 
corner-stone of His Church, to every part thereof. 
All of it, in every least part, abides in him. He, by 
his sanctifying Spirit, abides in every part. Its one- 
ness is the oneness of its life in Christ. Hence our 
Lord is called a " living stone;" not so much because 
he lives "the Lamb that was slain, and is alive 
again for evermore;" as because he is the source, 
and centre, and power of life, to give, and to sustain, 
life in his people ; to make every soul that is built 
up in him, a living temple, a spiritual house. When, 
on a certain occasion, a dead body was laid in a 
prophet's grave, as soon as it touched the bones of 
the man of God, it lived. But the life came not 
from the bones. Not so when the dead carcass of 



THE COMMUNION" OF SAINTS. 19 

man's ruined nature, dead in sin, is brought into 
contact, by faith, with the elect, corner-stone of the 
Church of God, and immediately is alive unto God, 
a new creature in Christ Jesus. The life cometh 
from that stone. It is a living stone, and has life in 
itself, to give life to the dead. "Our life is hid 
with Christ in God." It is all there, in the infinite 
depths, in the inexhaustible riches, in the inviolable 
security of that divine nature which is in him. The 
gates of hell cannot prevail against the Church, be- 
cause the seat, and source, and power of its life are 
not in the world, not in man, not in any community 
of men, not in the body of the Church, not in its 
ministry or ordinances ; not exposed to any of the 
infirmities of our nature ; but in that living stone, 
that mysterious union of God and man. Thus our 
life is "hid" out of the reach of Satan, beyond the 
grasp of the creature's enmity, where no convulsions 
of this world can affect it, in the deep of the wisdom, 
and power, and grace of God " with Christ in God" 

II. Let us consider the materials of which the 
Church is built. 

They are none but the true people of God. 
St. Paul, addressing the Church, said "Ye are 
the temple of the living God ; as God hath said, 
'I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I 
will be their God, and they shall be my people." 
Does this mean that they in whom God will dwell, 
are none but his people : or that He dwells also in 
those who are only professedly his people ? Surely 



20 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHUECH AND 

He dwells in none but those who love Him, and 
have received His Spirit and are led thereby. "As 
many as are led by the Spirit of God ; they are the 
sons of God." None but these, therefore, are ad- 
dressed in the text as the temple — none else are the 
Church of God. True, the words of the text were 
addressed to all the professed christians of Corinth, 
among whom were the false as well as the true. 
But they were all addressed also as " sanctified in 
Christ Jesus"* because all professed to be sanctified, 
and only as their sanctification was as professed, were 
they the Temple of God, except in name. 

But St. Peter settles this matter, once for all. 
He calls the several parts of the temple, " living 
stones" as he calls the great Head of the corner " a 
living stone" "To whom coming, as unto a living 
stone, ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual 
house"\ What is the doctrine here? Evidently 
that none but living stones compose that house — that 
the stones of the walls must be conformed to the 
stone of the corner. Because he lives, they must live 
also. In other words a dead christian, a mere pro- 
fessor of religion,, a mere creature of ordinances, with- 
out having Christ "formed within him, 77 what Bishop 
Taylor calls the mere "outsides" of the church, can 
have no membership in Christ 7 s true Church, can 
make no part in God 7 s Temple. The mind of Christ 
must be also in us; we must be like Him. "If any 
man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of Bis." 
* 1 Cor. i. 2. ] 1 Pet. ii. 5. 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 21 

If none of his, then surely none of his body, none of 
his Temple. Each of us must be one of God's 
faithful people, in order to be a real member of 
that church which our Prayer Book defines as 
"the blessed company of all faithful people." If 
any be not of that company, he cannot be of that 
church. " Others, (says Augustine,) are so said to 
be in the house of God, that they do not pertain to 
the structure of the house, but are as chaff* in the 
wheat. * * Those who are condemned by Christ, 
for their evil consciences, are not in Christ's body, 
which is the Church, for Christ hath no damned 
members."* "If Christ's quickening Spirit be want- 
ing in any, no external communion with Christ can 
make him a true member of Christ's mystical body, 
this being a most sure principle, that he which hath 
not the Spirit of Christ is none of His."f 

* Quoted by Bishop Taylor — Dissuasive from Popery. 

f Archbishop Usher's Sermon before the House of Commons. 



22 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHUECH AND 



CHAPTEE III. 

THE INSTRUMENTALITY OF FAITH IN 
BUILDING THE CHURCH. 

The corner stone, and the materials built there- 
upon, in the construction of the Church and Temple 
of God, we have now ascertained. But a question 
of chief importance here arises ; how are the dead 
stones out of the quarry of man's fallen nature to be 
made " living stones" in order that they may be 
built up in Christ ? How are sinners in all the ruin 
and defilement of a nature, totally alienated from 
God, to be so transformed, that they shall be meet 
to be made part and parcel of that temple of God ? 
By what instrumentality ? St. Peter answers; simply 
by coming to Christ. lt To whom coming as unto a 
living stone, ye also, as lively stones, are built up 
a spiritual house."* Our Lord taught the same great 
truth when he said : " Ye will not come unto me that 
ye might have life." 

It is the coming of each soul, in a personal appli- 
cation directly to Christ, by which the sinner obtains 
life ; in obtaining life by this application, he becomes 

* 1 Pet. ii. 4, 5. 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 23 

united to the living stone, Christ Jesus, and by that 
union he is built up as part and parcel of the spiritual 
house. His coming to Christ is his life; his de- 
riving life from Christ is his union unto him ; and 
in that very union unto Christ is contained and in- 
volved his being built up in His true Church. 
" This union to Christ maketh the church to be the 
church; and by it the members thereof, whether 
they be in heaven, or in earth, are distinguished 
from all other companies whatsoever."* What is 
meant by the communion of saints, is simply that 
common union with that common centre of the life 
of all and of each. They are one spiritual body, be- 
cause they have one living head, by which they all 
have life. That which makes the several parts of 
the human frame one body, is, not that they are joined 
one to another by bones and ligaments, and enclosed in 
the same integument ; but that they have all vital 
union with the life of one head. Communion in the 
life of that one head, constitutes them one body. 
And in the spiritual house of God, communion of the 
several stones in the life of the one living head of the 
corner, constitutes them one holy temple. But let 
us be more particular as to the nature of this coming 
to Christ. 

"To whom coming — ye are built up" &c. — says St. 
Peter. Coming to Christ is then the act of being built 
up in him. But what shall we understand by that 
coming ? The answer is given by St. Peter imme- 

* Perkins Works, vol. I. p. 277. 



24 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHUECH AND 

diatcly after : " Wherefore also, (he says,) it is con- 
tained in Scripture — Behold, I lay in Zion a chief 
corner-stone, elect, precious ; and he that believeth on 
him shall not be confounded." Hence there can 
be no question that believing on Christ is of 
the same meaning with the previous expression, 
coming unto him. Hence the apostle proceeds in the 
next verse to say: "Unto you, therefore, which 
believe, he is precious." The act of faith, then, 
is that which puts us in possession of all the 
preciousness of Christ ; which builds us upon that 
elect, living stone; which by obtaining the im- 
partation and indwelling of the Spirit of Christ 
makes us alive in him, and members of his own 
living Church. " Faith, (says our Hooker,) is the 
ground and the glory of all the welfare of this 
building,"* "That which linketh Christ to us, 
is his mere mercy and love towards us. That 
which tieth us to him, is our faith in the promised 
salvation revealed in his word of truth."f "No 
work of ours, no building of ourselves in any 
thing, can be profitable unto us, except we be 
built in faith.":}: We may be brought nigh, in a 
certain sense, to the one foundation ; ordinances 
and sacraments may set us down, as it were, im- 
mediately by it, and may put us into visible con- 
" action therewith, as visible members of the Church ; 

* Hooker's 2d Sermon on Jude, § 14. 
f Hooker's 1st Sermon on Jude, § 11. 
J Hooker's 2d Sermon on Jude, § 19. 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 25 

but after all we shall be but as so many loose 
stones ; without bond ; without life — having no real 
union with Christ, until we begin to exercise a 
living faith in him as all our life. It is a good 
sentence of holy Leighton: "This union is the 
spring of all spiritual consolations ; and faith, by 
which we are thus united, is a divine work. He 
that laid this foundation in Zion with his own hand, 
works likewise, with the same hand, faith in the 
heart, by which it is knit to this corner stone."* 

It is a question of vastly greater consequence 
than at first appears to many, whether the sin- 
ner comes by faith immediately to Christ, or in- 
termediately only, that is, through the sacraments 
of the Church ; whether he is privileged to come 
nigh, and draw life directly from, Christ the Head ; 
whether we are allowed to receive the precious 
anointing of the Holy Grhost, directly from the 
hand of our Great High Priest, on whom, as Man, 
for us, it was poured out "without measure," each 
believer receiving as directly from Christ as if 
he were his only member; or whether the se- 

* On 1st Peter, c. ii. 6. § 3. — " Faith is that spiritual mouth 
in us whereby we are made partakers of Christ, he being, by 
this means, as truly and every way as effectually made ours as 
the meat and drink which we receive into our natural bodies." 
Archbishop Usher's Sermon before the House of Commons. " As 
Christ is the true Temple, because the Godhead dwelleth in 
him, so all they, and only they, in whom he dwelleth by faith 
are true temples of God and live members of the Catholic 
Church." Dr. Jackson on the Church. 



26 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH AND 

veral believers can only receive that anointing 
of grace after it has first flowed down to some- 
thing called Christ' 1 s body or church ; abstractedly from 
the several believers composing the same, and thence 
to his individual members. 

The doctrine is maintained that Christ has given 
the whole administration of his grace to His Church, 
which, in this sense, is called " His fullness /" that the 
Church, by the mediation of Priesthood and Sacra- 
ments, gives to every man the grace purchased by 
Christ, as each has need ; that to this end, when the 
Church was established, on the day of Pentecost, all 
the gifts obtained by Christ at his ascension, for men, 
were invested in that Church, as a corporate spiri- 
tual institution, to hold that sacred property and use 
it as his ; consequently that when a sinner is said 
to come to Christ, the meaning is that he comes to 
Christ's Church, as his representative and distribut- 
ing agent. He does not touch Christ by faith ; but 
only the signs of his presence, the Church's ordi- 
nances. He is made a living stone, not by being 
brought directly to that great living corner-stone 
which is " laid in Zion ;" but only to a building 
erected on that stone and from which, life is received 
by every new addition; so that the passage of 
St. Peter, " To whom coming as unto a living stone" 
means a coming to Christ no more literal than merely 
our coming to the ordinances of his Church. In 
other words, a sinner becomes a living member oi 
Christ by being first united, by visible ordinances, 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 27 

to the visible Church ; and not (as the truth is) a 
living member of the true Church — the " spiritual 
house" "the household of faith," by being first 
united, by faith, in the Spirit, to Christ, its living 
corner stone. Let us mind what our Church 
says on this subject in her Homily " Corncern- 
ing the Sacrament "— "The faithful have their life, 
their abiding in him, their union, and as it were 
their incorporation with him. Whereupon let us 
prove and try ourselves unfeignedly whether we be 
plants of the fruitful Olive, living branches of the 
true vine, members indeed of Christ's mystical 
body." — Now, to what evidence does the Homily 
refer us in settlement of this momentous question? 
Does it say — ascertain whether you have been made 
members of the visible Church by baptism; and 
are partakers of its sacrament of communion? 
Certainly such evidence would be all sufficient, 
if union to the visible church makes us "mem- 
bers indeed of Christ's mystical body." — But the 
Homily refers us to no such evidence. It only 
directs us to search u whether God hath purified our 
hearts by faith, to the embracing of his mercies in 
Christ Jesus ; so that at his table, we receive not 
only the outward sacrament, but the spiritual thing 
also ; not the figure, but the true ; not the shadow 
only, but the body ; not to death, but to life ; not 
to destruction, but to salvation." 

All this is exactly St. Paul's doctrine — "As 
many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are 



28 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHUECH AND 

the sons of God" — that is, the only valid evidence 
of your sonship, of your being Christ's and there- 
fore adopted of God, for his sake, is a personal 
sanetification in heart and life, by the operation 
of the Holy GKhost. Without such evidence what- 
ever your connection by sacramental bonds with 
the church, your evidence of being a Christian 
indeed profiteth nothing. 

Now that putting the church between the sin- 
ner and the Saviour is an awful perversion of 
the Gospel, and denial of the most precious pri- 
vileges of the believer. It is one of the grand 
fictions of Rome, which lies at the base of her 
Anti- Christian system. It is nothing less than 
taking the sinner to man, instead of God. The 
precious birth-right of the believer, in his secret 
exercises of communion, by faith, with God, is to 
cease from man, to look above ordinances, and 
behold, without any intervening cloud, or medium, 
the Lamb of God ; to come as directly to him as 
if there were not a sacrament, or ordinance, or 
ministry, on earth; and be built up in him as 
immediately as if not a soul had ever been built 
up in him before. In other words, precisely as 
the first souls that were united by faith as living 
stones to that living corner-stone, could have had 
none between them and Christ, no row of intervening 
stones ; so all believers, to the end of the world, are 
united just as immediately. The mere incidental 
difference that some are converted in one cen- 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 29 

tury, some in a . later, makes no difference as to 
the privileges of any. All are alike built im- 
mediately on Christ. All are equally in the head. 
All have the same directness of communion with 
him. All receive alike out of his fullness. 

This is not only illustrated, but typically proved 
by the history of the Manna in the wilderness. 
The Church of God in the wilderness was sus- 
tained, as to bodily food, exclusively by the Manna 
which came down from heaven. Our Lord, in 
the sixth chapter of St. John, expressly points to 
that Manna as a type of Himself. As that sup- 
plied the bodily wants of the people Israel, so 
is he the bread of life for the spiritual wants 
of God's true Israel. But was the Manna laid 
up in some depot of the Church in the wilder- 
ness ; was it deposited in the hands of some 
stewards, at the beginning of the journey, to be 
kept and dealt out during all the forty years ; 
was the prerogative of its administration given 
to the Priesthood, and were the people to go 
to them, day by day, to get as much as they 
needed? No such thing! The Priesthood had 
nothing to do with its distribution. It was a 
matter of direct, daily, communication between 
the Head of that Church and every individual 
member. There was no supply laid up in cer- 
tain hands. When this was attempted, the bread 
corrupted; just as when the Anti- Christian doctrine, 
against which we are arguing, took possession 

3* 



SO THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHUKCH ANT 

of the Church, and the attempt was made to in- 
terfere with the direct, daily intercourse between 
Christ and each of his people, every thing in the 
Church corrupted. The simple mode by which 
each man of Israel was fed, was his going out, 
day by day, whether he was Priest, Levite, or 
any thing else, Aaron or Moses, or the least of 
the host, and gathering for himself. There was 
no vicarious work on the part of the Church, 
or any representative body. It was an act of 
faith for each man daily to exercise. The sup- 
ply was all held in the hands of the Great Head 
of the Church, from beginning to end. No steward- 
ship was appointed. It was He who gave to every 
man ; and he gave only for the day, lest the sense 
of constant, individual, direct, entire dependence 
on Him should be impaired. 

So are we taught by Him, every day, to ask 
our Manna — " Give us this day our daily bread." 
The Church is still on its pilgrimage. The peo- 
ple of God live by faith; their bread comes 
down from heaven. Each soul looks for it di- 
rectly unto Christ, who himself is that bread. He 
only knows what each wants. He only can give 
as each needs. Prayer of faith is the hand by 
which each receives out of his fullness. He has 
never given his glory, in this respect, to another. 
Corruption must enter into any Church that at- 
tempts to interfere with the immediate, continual, 
application of his people, for all grace, to their 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 31 

one, only, and glorious Head and Life ; by cen- 
tering attention on itself, its ministry, its ordi- 
nances as containing, in any degree that bread 
of life which, is not only in Christ alone, but 
is Christ himself in all his offices of grace.* 

We have thus enlarged on this part of our 
subject, because, however great the value and ne- 
cessity of visible ordinances and sacraments to 
the visible form of the otherwise invisible house 
of God ; and however important their uses as 
divinely appointed instruments in helping us to 
abide in Christ and in carrying on his work in our 
hearts, we cannot keep too distinct the great 
truth, nor urge it too plainly, that it is not 
these which constitute the true Church of Grod, 
whatever their office as parts of, and as essen- 
tial to, its visible form and operation ; that the 
great constituent act on which the whole being 
of the true Church depends, is just that on which 
all true piety in each soul depends — the coming 
of sinners, each for himself, unto Christ, by faith ; 
that in proportion as this individual exercise of 
faith, immediately upon Christ, increases in strength, 
and thus draws more and more life frojhi him 
into each soul, so increases the life and holiness 
of the Church — in other words, that the spiritual 
life of the Church is not a sort of corporate in- 
vestment in something called the body of Christ, 

* See Appendix A. 



32 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHUKCH AND 

independently of the spiritual character of its se- 
veral members, from which body, as a fountain, 
theirs is drawn, and which continues ever the 
same in fullness, whether they severally be holy, 
more or less. It is simply the aggregate of the 
spiritual life and holiness of all individual believers, 
severally united to, and drawing life immediately from 
Christ. To facilitate this, all the way of our pil- 
grimage, each drinking directly of that Rock which 
follows us, and gathering of that manna which, to the 
believer, daily cometh down from heaven, is the great 
object of all the external institutions of the Church ; 
and whenever they become so employed or regarded, 
that they perform not this subordinate office, especially 
when placed so high in dignity that they stand as 
evidences of the possession of grace, or worse still, 
as identical with grace itself, instead of only signs 
and seals and means of grace ; when instead of 
aiding the soul's direct looking unto Jesus for right- 
eousness and life, they render access to Him less sim- 
ple, less personal, less immediate, and more vicarious 
— more by intervening and intercessory agencies ; 
when they become themselves the objects of faith instead 
of only its auxiliaries — assuming, in any degree, to 
stand to the soul as depositories of the grace of Christ, 
inviting reliance in themselves instead of glory- 
ing, like John the Baptist, to point the sinner 
away from themselves to the Lamb of God; whenevei 
thus presented, (we cannot say it too strongly,) 
they are grievously perverted and dishonored. 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 33 

Never did the forerunner of our Lord appear 
more truly great than when retired most behind 
his message, and endeavouring to centre all atten- 
tion upon Him who was to baptize, not with 
water, but with the Holy Ghost. Never do the 
visible ordinances of the Church appear in their 
real beauty and dignity as when their signs are 
most retired behind the great truths they sig- 
nify, and are most effective in sending the hearts of 
those who come to them, away from themselves, 
to the person and offices of that Saviour whose 
inward grace they pledge, and to faith convey. 

How prone are christian men to lose sight of 
the real adorning of the house of God ; to think 
of the appearance more than the substance; to 
dwell on the outward which, however costly and 
magnificent, like the most fine gold of the tem- 
ple of Jerusalem, is all temporal; instead of the 
glorious jewelry of the spiritual sanctuary which 
is all eternal. How prone we are, while esti- 
mating very highly, as we ought, the assembling 
together of the many to the solemnities of the 
sanctuary, to make a low practical estimate, com- 
paratively, of the value of the coming of one 
sinner to Christ, by a living faith. Angels, in 
the presence of God, rejoice over the one sin- 
ner that repenteth; and the worth they see in 
our outward things, is only so far as they are 
profitable in bringing sinners to repentance and 

faith in Christ. But we — how prone to take 
c 



34 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH AND 

the means for ends, satisfying ourselves so much 
with the dignity and propriety of the visible 
array; zealous to gather the tributes of wealth 
and taste, the sculpture, the architecture, the 
robe, the chaunt, — all, perhaps befitting the courts 
of the Lord's house ; but we looking so little be- 
yond these surface-things, to inquire how far it 
may be hoped the inward adorning of faith that 
worketh by love, and hath fruit unto holiness, 
is valued, preached and sought after, as the one 
thing, without which all else is but outside and 
vain. Alas ! let us not forget what emptiness and 
nothingness are in the one, but as it is met at 
each point and filled out with the reality of the 
other; that dead materials, " wood, hay, stubble," 
however covered over with the sacramental robe 
of a christian profession, are stubble still; that 
the spiritual death of a merely professing chris- 
tian, instead of being made less dead by being 
arrayed in the vestments of living religion is 
only made the more awful by being thus laid 
out in state. The painted corpse, dressed as in 
life, is the most revolting aspect of death. 

But there is a way to be adding ever increasing 
beauty and glory to the house of God. Oh ! that 
we may prize it more and more ! Go out into 
the lanes and highways ; find some outcast wretch, 
some stray fragment of the universal wreck of 
man, some trampled stone in the miry clay, 
sound aloud the word of the Lord— that harp 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 35 

of blessed music by which the Spirit draws dead 
stones to Christ. By and by, under the power 
of God, blessing the word, that soul is awakened 
to a sense of ruin and want and is led, in the 
strong captivity of the truth, to Christ. No sooner 
does he touch that rock, than the virtue of a 
new life comes unto him, and he lives. The love 
of God is shed abroad in his heart. The beautiful 
garniture of inward graces, more precious than 
the most fine gold, adorns him. He is united 
to Christ, and through him to God. Here is the 
honour of the Church, the preciousness of the 
Gospel and the glory of the grace of God. How 
wonderful that communication of life — that resur- 
rection from the dead — that ascension of the regene- 
rated soul to " sit in heavenly places in Christ." Look 
unto the rock whence he was hewn, and the hole of 
the pit whence he was digged! How is God glorified 
in such an addition to His Church ! What joy is it 
to the angels that do His will ! By such is the 
Church a building of God. Thus does it rise 
towards heaven. These are thy jewels, daughter of 
Zion! Thy " walls salvation, thy gates praise." 



86 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH AND 



CHAPTEE IV. 

THE VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE CHURCH. 

In all that we have now said, we have scarcely- 
hinted at what is called the visible Church, as dis- 
tinguished from the invisible. We have spoken ex- 
clusively of that Church which, in the words of the 
Martyr Eidley, " standeth only of living stones, and 
true Christians, not only outwardly in name and 
title, but inwardly in heart and truth."* This wo 
have spoken of as the only real Church, because the 
only " household of faith." All are of it who are 
living a life of faith on the Son of God ; none are of 
it, who are not living that life. 

But we do not deny that the name of Church 
is also applied in Scripture to the whole mul- 
titude of those who, by participation in the ordi- 
nances of the gospel, profess the faith of Christ, 
and hence are called Christians. This is what is 
called the Visible Church, as distinguished from 
that " spiritual house," which consists only of the 
true people of God ; the true church "of such as shall 
be saved," and which is called the Invisible. And 

* Bisliop Ridley's Works, (Parker s c. Ed. J p. 126. 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 3^ 

forasmuch, as the distinction is wholly denied by 
the Eomish Church, conflicting as it does so essen 
tially with her whole system of sacramental grace, 
which maintains that the number of the receivers of 
her sacraments is just the number of the true people 
of God ; and forasmuch as there are not a few in our 
own church, who partake in the same aversion to a 
distinction which is just as common in the writings 
of the Fathers of our Anglo-Protestant Church, as 
the difference between means of grace and grace 
itself, we will therefore introduce what we wish to 
say on this subject, with a passage already quoted 
from that great authority in matters of the Church, 
Eichard Hooker on the importance of the distinction 
between the visible church and the invisible or as 
he calls it mystical. He says: u For lack of dili- 
gent observing the difference between the Church 
of God mystical and visible, the oversights are 
neither few nor light that have been committed." 
Now what Hooker calls the mystical, as distinguished 
from the visible Church, is what we here call the 
invisible; and he calls it mystical for the same 
reason that we call it invisible; namely, because 
" it cannot be sensibly discerned by any man, inas- 
much as the parts thereof are some in heaven 
already with Christ, and the rest that are on earth 
(albeit their natural persons be visible) we do not 
discern under this property whereby they are truly 
and infallibly of that body" — that is, while personally 
they are visible, we cannot with certainty ascertain, 

4 



38 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH AND 

out of all that profess to be of the body of Christ, 
who are truly such from those who are not. " They 
who are of this society (he continues) have such 
marks and notes of distinction from all others, as 
are not objects unto our sense ; only unto God who 
seeth their hearts, unto him they are clear and 
manifest."* 

Then, concerning this "society," or church, thus 
invisible to us, the same admirable writer says : 

"The multitude of them which truly believe (how- 
soever they be dispersed far and wide, each from 
other) is all one Body, whereof the Head is Christ; 
one building, whereof he is corner-stone, in whom 
they, as the members of the body, being knit, and 
as the stones of the building, being coupled, grow up 
to a man of perfect stature, and rise to an holy tem- 
ple in the Lord. That which linketh Christ to us is 
his mere mercy and love towards us. That which 
tieth us to him, is our faith in the promised salvation 
revealed in the word of truth. That which uniteth 
and joineth us amongst ourselves, in such sort that 
we are now as if we had but one heart and one soul, 
is our love. Who be inwardly in heart the lively 
members of this body, and the polished stones 
of this building, coupled and joined to Christ, as 
flesh of his flesh, and bones of his bones, by the 
mutual bonds of his unspeakable love towards them, 
and their unfeigned faith in him, thus linked and 
fastened to each other, by a spiritual, sincere, and 

* Eccl. Pol. b. iii. § 1. 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 39 

hearty affection of love, without any manner of 
simulation; who be Jews within, and what their 
names be ; none can tell, save he whose eyes do be- 
hold the secret dispositions of all men's hearts."* 

Let us, in conformity with these views of Hooker, 
explain more particularly this distinction. 

We do not call the true Church, unto which the 
promises are made, and the members of which are 
all alive in Christ Jesus — invisible, because, so far as 
it is on earth, it is not visible, in the same sense 
as all professing Christians are a visible Church, 
that is — visible, because existing under visible ordi- 
nances, divinely appointed. But we mean that that 
" blessed company of God's faithful people," is not 
visible to us in respect to those spiritual features and 
differences whereby it is distinguished as such in 
the sight of God. Not that they do not show their 
faith by their works; not that the good tree does 
not bring forth good fruit ; not that their light does 
not shine before men ; not that we cannot say, with 
much assurance concerning this one and that, there 
goes "an Israelite indeed;" but that we cannot do this 
in any case infallibly } much less is it in the power of 
any man, or of all men so to run the line in any 
congregation between all the true people of God, 
and all who, while united with them under the 
marks of a visible profession, are not his people, 
that the whole demarcation shall be strictly true, the 

* Hooker's First Sermon on St. Jude. 



40 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH AND 

wheat all distinguished from the tares. Only the 
Lord thus "knoweth them that are his." 

We are well aware that the objection is often 
urged against this distinction between the Church 
visible and invisible, that it is, in effect, making two 
churches; whereas the Church of God is but one. 
But this objection is founded on a misapprehension 
of the whole distinction. For illustration, let us 
speak of the whole body of professing christians, or 
all the visible church, as all communicants at the 
sacrament of the Lord's supper. None but a Ko- 
manist or a so-called Protestant, far gone in Koman- 
ism, will pretend that all these, because they all take 
the sacrament of Christ's body and blood, do really 
and spiritually commune in that which the sacrament 
signifies. But visibly, (that is apparently, or under a 
visible profession,) they are all communicants alike, 
and so we call them. Among them however, are 
those who, besides being communicants in the sacra- 
mental signs, do truly commune with their Lord in 
the inward and spiritual grace, and are partakers of 
all the benefits of his passion to their soul's health. 
But who these are, only God certainly knows. Their 
inward marks are invisible to us, who cannot search 
the heart. We have here then the visible com- 
munion, consisting of all who partake of the sacra- 
ment; and the invisible, consisting of those only who 
partake also in the spiritual grace. Now does this 
make two distinct communions ? Does Baptism with 
the water only, and Baptism with the Spirit also, 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 41 

make two sacraments ? Does christian religion in 
the name and form only, and christian religion in 
heart and life also, make two Christianities ? If on 
the contrary, the sacrament received only in the sign, 
and the same received also in the inward and 
spiritual grace, be but one sacrament; then we con- 
tend that to speak of the church having one aspect 
as consisting visibly of all who are christians in pro- 
fession, however many of them have nothing else 
than the profession, and having another aspect as 
consisting invisibly and really of those only who 
are christians indeed, is not to make two churches. 

Another objection. It is often said that whenever 
the Scriptures speak of the Church on earth, it is a 
visible community or society that is meant, known 
and marked by certain outward signs and ordinances. 
And hence the inference is made that the notion of 
an invisible church is contradicted in the Scriptures. 

The premises we grant. The inference we deny. 

Did we speak of the church as invisible in the 
same sense as that in which the Scriptures represent 
it as a visible institution, we grant it would be 
a direct contradiction of God's word. But we make 
no approach to that folly. Let us take an illus- 
tration given by Hooker to this very point. "All 
men knew Nathaniel to be an Israelite. But our 
Saviour piercing deeper, giveth further testimony of 
him than men could have done with such certainty 
as he did, Behold an Israelite indeed in whom 
there is no guile." 

4* 



42 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH AND 

Now here is the visible and the invisible Israelite. 
As an Israelite ; by profession, he is visible, in com- 
pany with all others who observed the ceremonial 
law of Israel. As "an Israelite indeed" in the spirit, 
as well as in the outward ceremonial, he is invisible. 
Only he that searcheth the heart could certainly dis- 
tinguish him in that respect. Now suppose one 
should say that to call Nathaniel invisibly "an 
Israelite indeed" is to contradict the scriptures 
which always speak of the Israelitish body or church 
and every member of it as existing under certain 
known, visible marks. Would it require any skill 
of logic to detect the blunder? But Nathaniel 
stands for every Christian indeed, and for all the 
blessed company of Christians indeed; and it were 
just as groundless to charge us with contradicting 
the Scriptures because we call them, in that respect, 
an invisible company, or church, while the Scriptures 
always speak of the Church, as made visible by a 
certain appointed externalism. 

Precisely the same distinction of Israelite by ordi- 
nance only, and Israelite in spirit and in truth also, 
our Lord enlarged upon in all those parables, such 
as the net cast into the sea and enclosing fishes 
good and bad, and the field in which grew together 
the wheat and the tares; teaching thus the mixed 
state of the visible church, as it will be till his 
coming again. The field and the net were visible 
enclosures, and thus that which was in them was 
visibly separated from all that was without. But 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 43 

among the contents of the net and the field, there 
was a distinction which those enclosures did not in- 
dicate. There were the good and the bad in the 
same net ; and the tares and the wheat in the same 
field. The fishes were not to be separated till the 
net was brought to the shore ; nor the wheat and 
the tares till the harvest. Now are we to be charged 
with, in effect, denying that they were all within 
visible enclosures, because we say that while the net 
was in the sea, and while to the harvest of the field 
the husbandman had not sent forth his reapers to 
separate the wheat from the tares, the good fish and 
the good grain were as such invisible ? When such 
an absurdity can be sustained, we shall grant that, 
in maintaining the view here given of the invisible 
Church, we in effect contradict the Scriptures, which 
always speak of the Church on earth as known by 
certain visible signs or ordinances. The visible 
Church is the Church, as seen of men, in the mixed 
mass of the true and the false, the genuine and the 
counterfeit, people of God. The invisible Church is 
the same Church, as seen only of God, in the un- 
mixed company of all His faithful people. The one 
is that great flock, gathered together by the call of 
the Gospel, from all parts of the earth to the pro- 
fessed following of the Good Shepherd, in which the 
sheep of his pasture are mingled with the goats that 
know him not, and are none of his ; all, however, 
visibly, that is, professedly, his flock. The other is 
simply so much of that mixed multitude as do truly 



44 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH AND 

hear the voice of the Shepherd, and follow him, and 
unto whom he giveth eternal life. 

To call all the visible Church, the Church of God, 
when it is not all really the Church, but only con- 
tains it, and when indeed a very great part is really 
of the kingdom of darkness, is only consistent with 
a mode of speech common in the Scriptures, and in 
ordinary life. We speak of the husk, while it con- 
tains the corn, as the corn, though in itself fit only 
to be burned. All the stately structure at Jerusalem 
was called in Scripture the Temple, while the sanctu- 
ary, far within, and making only a small part of the 
whole structure, but distinguished from all the rest 
by having within it, the mercy-seat and the glory 
of God, was really the Temple. All the people of 
Israel were called "the people of God," "the Israel 
of God," "the circumcision," "the congregation" 
(or Church) of the Lord, because all were visibly so, 
by the profession which all made in the visible ordi- 
nances of the Jewish Church. But, said St. Paul, 
"all are not Israel, that are of Israel; neither because 
they are all the seed of Abraham are they all child- 
ren," of the promise made to Abraham.* "He is not 
a Jew that is one outwardly, neither is that circum- 
cision which is outward in the flesh. But he is a 
Jew which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that 
of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose 
praise is not of men but of God"f Thus did St. Paul 

* Rom. ix. 6, 7, 8. t Rom - »• 28 » 29 « 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 45 

draw the distinction between the visible or professing 
Church, and the real but invisible Church, under the 
Mosaic dispensation. All the children of Abraham, 
according to the flesh, all the children of the exter- 
nal covenant, all that were Jews by birth and sacra- 
ment, were of the visible congregation or professing 
Church of Israel. But all were not "(/Israel," the 
true Israel. The true Church of God was only of 
those who were Jews inwardly; who had received 
the circumcision " of the heart, in the spirit" and were 
thus known to the Searcher of all hearts, however 
unknown in that respect to men. To them only be- 
longed the promises, because they only were the 
children of faithful Abraham. St. Paul found no 
fault with the usual mode of speech in which all were 
said to be of the circumcision who had received the 
sign or sacrament of circumcision ; but he thought it 
highly important to be very distinct in his instruc- 
tion on the point that the sign was not the thing; that 
the sacrament of circumcision was not the circum- 
cision. It was the thing only sacramentally, or in 
the sign ; not in the reality. It was the visible rite; 
not the invisible grace. It made a visible or pro- 
fessed Israelite, not " an Israelite indeed ;" for cir- 
cumcision (said he) is that of the heart, in the spirit^ 
and not in the letter." 

The analogous use of language extends to all that 
is visible of the Church under the Gospel. There is 
but one real baptism, "not the putting away of the 
filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience to- 



46 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH AND 

wards God;"* not the outward washing, but the in- 
ward sanctification — for Baptism, precisely as cir- 
cumcision, is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in 
the letter, whose praise is not of men but of God. Still 
that outward washing is called baptism, just as the 
outward Jewish sacrament was called circumcision. 
But it is important now, as in St. Paul's time, to 
keep it very distinctly in mind that it is only sacra- 
mental baptism, only the sacrament or sign of bap- 
tism — not the thing. The real baptism is invisible, 
" whose praise is not of men but of God." The sign 
or sacrament is not depreciated in this ; but the 
thing signified is relatively honoured above it.f 

* 1 Pet. iii. 21. 

f ' ' All receive not the grace of God Csays Hooker J who re- 
ceive the sacraments of his grace.' ' — Eccl. Pol., b. v. § 17. 

"External baptism and the waters of Noah are types of the 
same rank; both types or shadows of that internal baptism by 
the Holy Ghost, by which we are incorporated into the body of 
Christ and become more undoubtedly safe from the everlasting 
fire, than such as entered into Noah's Ark were from the deluge 
of water." — Dr. Jackson's Treatise on the Church. 

" Although baptism be a sacrament to be received and hon- 
ourably used of all men, it sanctifieth no man. And such as 
attribute the remission of sin to the external rite, doth offend. *** 
Such as be baptized must remember that repentance and faith 
precede the external sign.*** So that there are two kinds of bap- 
tism — the one interior which is the cleansing of the heart, the 
drawing of the Father, the operation of the Holy Ghost ; and 
this baptism is in man, when he believeth and trusteth that 
Christ is the only author of his salvation. **** So it is in the 
Church of Christ : man is made the brother of Christ, and heir 
of eternal life, by God's only mercy received by faith before he 






THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 47 

Again, there is but one real communion of the 
body and blood of Christ, that of those who feed on 
Christ, in their hearts, by faith, with thanksgiving. 
And yet in Scripture the visible sacrament is called 
the communion. "The bread which we break, is it not 
the communion of the body of Christ?"* But in strict- 
ness of speech it is not the communion of the body 
of Christ, but only the sacrament, or divinely insti- 
tuted sign, of that communion. It is the visible 
communion. The real is invisible, f 

It is an old saying of St. Augustine, quoted in our 
Homilies, J and very common in our old writers, for 
the illustration of this precise point, that " sacra- 
ments do, for the most part, receive the names of the 
self-same things which they signify."§ In this ap- 

receive any ceremony to confirm and manifest openly his right 
and title.*** Thus assured of God, and cleansed from sin in 
Christ, he hath the livery of God given unto him, baptism, the 
which no Christian should neglect ; and yet not attribute his 
sanctification unto the external sign. As the King's majesty 
may not attribute his right unto the crown, but unto God and 
unto his father, who have not only given him grace to be born 
into the world, but also to govern as a king in the world ; whose 
right and title the crown confirmeth and sheweth the same unto all 
the world. 91 — Works of Hooper , Bishop and Martyr, (Parker Soc. 
Ed. vol i.) pp. 74, 75. 

* 1 Cor. x. 16. 

f Art. XXVIII. 

t Homily on Common Prayer and Sacraments. 

§ "The thing itself in this sacrament (the Eucharist) that is 
the precious body of Christ broken, and his innocent blood shed, 
be absent; yet be the bread and the wine called the body broken 



48 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH AND 

plication of terms, the Sacrament of Communion is 
called the Communion; the Sacrament of Eegene- 
ration is called the Eegeneration. By analogous 
terms, the receiver of these sacramental signs and 
visible notes of a Christian, is called a Christian, 
whether he be a Christian inwardly or not ; and the 
vast multitude, in the whole earth, united into one 
professing community, under the same signs, are 
called the Christian Church; though it is no un- 
charitableness to suppose that an immense proportion 
of them have not the Spirit of Christ, and so are 
none of his, and consequently are no more his Church, 

and the blood-shedding according to the nature of a sacrament, 
to set forth, the better the thing done and signified in the sacra- 
ment. There is done in the sacrament the memory and remem- 
brance of Christ's death, which was done on the cross, where his 
precious body and blood was rent and torn, shed and poured out 
for our sins. 

" With this agreeth the mind of St. Augustine. — Ad Bonifa- 
cium, Epist. xxiii. — Si enim sacramenta quandam similitudinem 
earum rerum quarum sacramenta sunt, non haberent, omnino sacra- 
menta non essent : that is to say, i If sacraments had not some 
proportion and likeness of the things whereof they be sacraments, 
they were no sacraments at all. And thus rather of the simili 
tude and signification of the thing which they represent and 
signify, they take the name, and not that indeed they be as they 
be named.' 

So after this manner is the sacrament of Christ's body called 
Christ's body; and the sacrament of Christ's blood called his 
blood ; and the sacrament of faith is called faith. As St. Augus- 
tine learnedly and godly saith in the same argument, ' Let the 
word come unto the element, and then is made the sacrament.' " 
■ — Bishop Hooper's Works, (Parker Soc. Ed. vol. i.) p. 515, 51G. 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 49 

than a merely professing Christian is a true Christian, 
or than a merely external communicant is a real 
communicant of the body and blood of Christ. The 
visible or professed Church of God they all certainly 
are ; because they are the company of the visible or 
professing people of God. 

But the true Church of God, to which belong all 
the glorious titles and privileges and promises of 
God, in Scripture; which is "the pillar and ground 
of the truth" and against which the gates of hell 
cannot prevail, that company cannot be but in pro- 
portion as it consists (as our good Hooker says on 
this head) "of none but true Israelites, true sons of 
Abraham, true servants and saints of God." 



50 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH AND 



CHAPTER V. 

THE DISTINCTION OF THE CHUECH AS 
VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE CONTINUED. 

If the reader, unaccustomed to such subjects as 
we have been discussing, would rightly appreciate 
the views we have given, he must keep clear in his 
mind the distinction between the universal visible 
church, and all particular ecclesiastical organizations. 
The visible church, universal, is not the compre- 
hension of all separate ecclesiastical organizations, 
such as the particular constitutions of parishes, dioceses 
or national churches, but of all professing christians, 
united in the bonds of common sacraments, and the 
common fundamental faith, into one community, 
however scattered in place, however diversified in 
other ecclesiastical relations. 

It may seem at first sight that the views just ex- 
pressed are incompatible with the 19th Article, en- 
titled— u Of the Church"— which is as follows: "Thf 
visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful 
men, in which the pure Word of God is preached, 
and the sacraments be duly ministered, according tc 
Christ's ordinance, in all those things that of neceS' 
sity are requisite to the same." 



THE COIIUNION OF SAINTS. 51 

This is a description of the Visible Church. At 
first view it seems to identify the visible church 
with the company of all God's true, believing, obe- 
dient people; for no one acquainted with the 
language of the writers of the days when the Arti- 
cles were written, can doubt that "a congregation of 
faithful men" means the community or society of 
God's true people ; in other words, such as are living 
"a life of faith upon the Son of God." 

Now, can it be for a moment supposed that our 
Eeformers intended to say that the visible, or pro- 
fessing church, embraces none but such faithful peo- 
ple? in other words, that all professing christians 
are true christians? This were impossible. The 
Eeformers, we all know, held no such view; but 
loudly contended against all approach to it and es- 
pecially as it is held by the Church of Eome. 

What then does the Article mean ? A little con- 
sideration will show that it speaks to two points. 
1st. What is the Church ? for it is entitled — " Of the 
Church.'''' 2d. What is the visibility of the Church; 
or in what is it visible? 

To the first, it says, The Church is " a congrega- 
tion" or, society, "of faithful men;" precisely ac- 
cording to the doctrine we have been teaching. To 
the second, it says, The Church is a visible church 
in this, viz : — In it " the pure Word of God is 
preached, and the sacraments be duly ministered ac- 
cording to Christ's ordinance," &c. In other words, 
the essential notes of the church, by which it is made 



52 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHTJRCH AND 

visible ; are the administration of the sacraments in 
all things essential to them, and the preaching of the 
pure word of God, Wherever these are, is the 
visibility of the church : — Wherever there is, under 
fchem, a community of God's true people, there the 
true church not only is, but is visible, as far as it can 
be, to those who cannot search the hearts. 

This leads us to some remarks on what are called 
"Notes of the Church." 

Precisely as visible sacraments are spoken of, as 
if they were the invisible grace which they signify; 
so the whole visibility of the church is spoken of as 
if it constituted the church which it indicates. Thus 
what are called "Notes" of the true Church, which, 
in protest ant doctrine, are simply the profession of 
the fundamental christian faith, in the right use of 
the christian sacraments and ministry, are often 
spoken of as if they were constituent elements of the 
church. All this language is correct, only so far as 
it is correct to speak of the sacramental receiving the 
communion, as the communion of the body of Christ; 
or the sacramental receiving of baptism, as the bap- 
tism of the Holy Ghost ; or the sacramental receiving 
of circumcision as the circumcision ; or to say that 
the man who has the notes of being a christian, in hav- 
ing the profession of the fundamentals of the faith, 
joined with the reception of the sacraments, is there- 
by a real christian. He has the notes, or signs, of a 
christian, and therefore is called a christian ; but 
those notes or signs do not make him a true chris- 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 53 

tian, nor prove him to be such. They only prove 
that he has the divinely appointed visibility of a 
christian. Thus, as to the notes of the true church. 
They do not belong to the being of the church in the 
sight of God ; but only to its manifestation in the 
sight of man — to its visibility, its form. That form 
may be supposed all laid aside, and a new mode of 
profession put on, under another dispensation ; and 
yet the church may continue essentially the same. 
Its notes, or signs, indicate; they do not constitute its 
being. They are marks, not properties. Thus the 
whole divinely appointed visibility of the church is 
the one sign, indicating, as the light upon the dwel- 
lings of the Israelites in Egypt, amidst the deep sur- 
rounding darkness, the existence in this dark world, 
of a church which otherwise would be invisible. 
But it does no more. It is not the church, any more 
than that miraculous light wherewith God marked 
off his people Israel, and made them visible in the 
night of Egypt, was that people. 

The church has no more right to dispense with 
the visible form, under which God has appointed it 
to be in this world, than a man has a right to divest 
himself of the body which God has given him here to 
wear. We consider the body of sacraments and or- 
dinances, by which the true spiritual church is made 
visible, to be quite as necessary to the church for its 
office in this world, as the body of flesh, by which 
the true man is made a visible man, is necessary to 

his duty on earth. But the question, what consti- 

4* 



54 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHUKCH AND 

tutes tlie church, is as independent of what makes it 
a visible church, as the question, what is the intelli- 
gent man, is independent of what makes the visible 
form of a man. 

For ordinary purposes, no harm may arise from 
confounding, in common speech, the visibility of the 
jhurch with the being of the church, and speaking of 
the one, as if it were identical with the other. Thus 
we speak of man. The visible man, his body, is 
spoken of as the man. "We say the man is dead, 
when we mean only that his body, the visible form, 
of the man, is dead. The man himself is living still, 
but invisibly. But when the great question comes — 
what is it to be a christian, to be of the communion of 
saints — in other words, what is it to be a member of 
the holy Catholic Church, the body of Christ ; what 
is that society to which belong exclusively the pro- 
mises of the Gospel, the life of Christ, and the heri- 
tage of God ; then, as we say of every individual 
person who has been baptized, and is a commu- 
nicant, that he is not a christian, except he have re- 
ceived the inward baptism of the Holy Ghost, and 
does feed upon Christ in his heart by faith ; so we 
must say of all the baptized and the communicating, 
that while they all have the visibility of the church, 
none of them have any part in its reality, except 
they be joined by a living faith to Christ. 

The vital importance of this difference between 
the visible and invisible, which we have been en- 
deavouring to maintain, cannot be overrated. The 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 55 

true church is the mystical body of Christ. Its 
members are his members. He has no dead mem- 
bers. He will not suffer any member of his to be 
lost. The true Church is the Bride of Christ, which 
he will finally receive to himself and every part and 
member of that Church is that Bride. The true 
Church is the Temple of God, made up of "lively" 
or living stones, each alive by the life of Christ, the 
corner stone, and vitally united to him by a living 
faith. To that Church, belong all the promises of 
grace and peace and love and salvation which are 
sealed in the covenant of grace, through Christ 
Jesus. Whoever belongs to that church, to him be- 
longs all those promises. To be a member of 
Christ's body, and not have a portion in the pro- 
mises made thereto, for the sake of the living head, 
is impossible. 

Then what is that Church ? Is it the whole visi- 
ble society, composed as that ever has been, and as, 
the Saviour says, it ever will be, till he comes again, 
of such exceedingly opposite characters, all sacra- 
mentally baptized, all partakers of the sacrament of 
the Lord's Supper, either at the Protestant table, or 
the Eomish altar, and among them so many of the 
worst of men, who like Simon Magus, under the 
name of believers, are children of the devil ? If it 
be so, then we reach an awful conclusion. All those 
wicked men as members of the Church are mem- 
bers of Christ, are the Bride of Christ, and to them, 
in that relation, belong the promises of the covenant 



56 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHUKCH AND 

of grace and salvation, and they must be saved. And 
we cannot escape this awful conclusion by saying, 
they are unfaithful members of the church ; they are 
fallen or hypocrital professors of religion ; they have 
forfeited the grace received at baptism. The ques- 
tion is not whether they are consistent members, but 
are they still members in fact of the Church of Christ? 
If you say they are, because the whole visible church 
is the true church, and they are members of it ; then 
say what you please of their unfaithfulness. The 
promises that belong to the church are theirs ; they 
are members of Christ, they are partakers of his 
life, they have peace with God in him. Is this con- 
clusion revolting ? It follows inevitably from the 
premises. Grant that essential position of Eoman- 
ism, that whoever is in the church sacramentally, is 
in it also really; that whoever is an Israelite by 
ordinance is "an Israelite indeed;" and the conclusion 
is inevitable, that the multitude of them that are 
called christians is identically the company of them 
that have the christian's hope. They are in the 
Church, and therefore in Christ, and therefore heirs 
of the promise. The only escape from such a con- 
clusion is to forsake the position from which it fol- 
lows, and understand by the Church, not the whole 
visible, but only those in it, who are invisibly dis- 
tinguished from all others, as leading a life of faith 
in the Son of God. Hence the importance of the 
distinction we have discussed. 

It is not difficult to understand why the doc- 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 57 

trine of the invisibility of the true Church, as 
such, should be abhorrent to Popery. 

Let us see how it effects the infallibility of the 
Church of Eome, through its Councils, or its Pope, 
in whichsoever it is supposed to reside. 

The church, according to Eome, is, by some re- 
presentative or other, an infallible guide of faith and 
determiner of controversy. This she can only be, if at 
all, because to her the promises of God are made. It 
becomes then a great question for Eome to settle 
what is that church to which are given the pro- 
mises of God, and which thus becomes " the pil- 
lar and ground of the truth;' 7 and is, therefore, 
by Eomish inference, the infallible indicator of 
truth. It must be either what protestants call 
the invisible church, consisting only of those who 
are in the exercise of a living faith ; or it' must 
be what protestants call the visible church, as em- 
bracing the merely nominal as well as the true 
people of God. If the former be exclusively the 
church which possesses the promises, then because, 
while the persons of the members of that church 
are visible, their distinctive character, as true 
Israelites, is invisible, Eomanists can never ascer- 
tain with any confidence to whom their consul- 
tation should be directed; the oracle is of no 
use, since its whereabouts is not known; and 
so infallibility, if it exist, is of no tangible use. 
The necessity of escaping this consequence, by 
denying the premises, was perfectly understood 



58 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHUKCH AND 

by Cardinal Bellarmine. Therefore lie said : "It is 
necessary it should be infallibly certain to us, 
which assembly of men is the Church. For since the 
Scriptures, traditions, and plainly all doctrines, de- 
pend on the testimony of the church; unless it 
be most sure which is the true church, all things 
will be wholly uncertain. But it cannot appear 
to us which is the true church, if internal faith 
be required of every member or part of the church."* 
Here is precisely the point. If none can be a 
member of that mystical body to which pertain 
the promises, unless he have internal faith — that 
is, living faith — the infallibility of the church, as 
a determiner of controversy, perishes. Hence, of 
course Eome must deny that necessity, and main- 
tain that those who have not living faith, are 
not only professedly, but really, members of the 
true church, and therefore sharers in the promises. — 
Hence, in her use, the expressions, mystical body 
of Christ, temple of God, communion of saints, 
holy catholic church, and visible church, are pre- 
cisely of the same application. Most of the later 
Romanist writers "take all those glorious titles 
or promises made to the church in its most 
ample or exquisite signification, to be exactly and 
entirely fulfilled of the visible church throughout 
all ages. The visible church, in their language, 
is a society or body ecclesiastic, notoriously known 

* Lib. iii. de Eccl. Milit. cap. 10 sect. Ad hoc necesse est, &c. 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 59 

by the site or the place of its residence, or by 
their dignity, order and offices, which are the 
perpetual governors of it." In support of their 
doctrine, that this visible church is the true, uni- 
versal, holy church, " never did the Jew doat half 
so much on external circumcision and legal sacri- 
fices, or the canonical priesthood, as the modern 
Komanist doth on the sacraments of the gospel, 
and on his imaginary priesthood, after the order 
of Melchizedeck, or other like notes or sensible 
cognizances of the visible church."* Cardinal 
Bellarmine makes an argument against Calvin's 
view of the invisible church, " which being drawn 
into form, (says Dr. Jackson,) stands thus : ' The 
word (church) in Scripture cloth always import a visible 
company of men; therefore it doth not belong to an in- 
visible congregation.' The argument, (proceeds Jack- 
son,) is no better than this : The holy ointment did 
bedew or besprinkle Aaron's garments ; ergo, it was 
not poured upon his head, or it did not mollify or 
supple some other parts of his body; whereas, the truth 
is, unless the ointment had first been plentifully 
poured upon his head, it could not have run down his 
neck unto the skirts of his vesture. Answerable to 
this representation, we say that all the glorious 
prerogatives, titles or promises, annexed to the 
church in Scripture, are in the first place, and 
principally meant, of Christ's live mystical body. 

* Jackson's Works, b. xii. c. xii. § 5. 



60 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH AND 

But being in abundant measure bestowed on it, they 
descend by analogy or participation, unto all and 
every one that hath put on Christ by profession, 
without respect of person, place or dignity. All the 
difference in the measure of their participation or 
manner of their attribution, ariseth from the divers 
degrees of similitudes or proportion which they hold 
with the actual live-members of Christ's mystical 
body in matter of faith or conversation. Such as 
have the true model or draft of that Catholic faith, 
without which no man can be saved, imprinted on 
their understandings, albeit not solidly engrossed or 
transmitted into their hearts and affections, are to be 
reputed by us, (who understand their external pro- 
fession better than their inward disposition,) true 
Catholics — true members of Christ's body and heirs 
of promise ; although in very deed, and in His sight 
that knows the secrets of men's hearts, many of them 
be members of Christ's body only in such sense as a 
human body shaped or organized, but not yet 
quickened with the spirit of life, is termed a man. 

"The conclusion, touching this point, which 
Bellarmine and his followers are bound to prove, is 
this : that under the name and titles of that church 
whereunto the assistance of God's spirit for its di- 
rection or other like prerogatives, are, by God's 
word, assured, the visible church, taken in that sense 
in which they always take it, is either literally meant, 
or necessarily included."* 

* Jackson lb. c. v. § § 3, 4. 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 61 

Until the Council of Trent constructed the present 
fixed creed of the Church of Kome, out of what 
before were, in a great degree, floating, unfixed 
opinions, more or less prevalent among her writers, 
there were not wanting those who wrote with suf- 
ficient clearness in support of the distinction be- 
tween the church invisible and visible, as ex- 
hibited here. It was not until sometime after the 
Council that such writers quite ceased. Jackson 
says: "Until Bellarmine, Valentia, Stapleton, and 
some others, did trouble the stream of God's word," 
the doctrine here shown of the difference between 
the visible and invisible, "was clearly represented 
to the adversaries of our church.' 7 Bishop Taylor, 
in his Dissuasive from Popery, quotes several 
Eomish doctors, as Aquinas, Petrus a Soto, Mel- 
chior Canus, &c, as holding that wicked men are 
not true members of the church, but only equi- 
vocally. "Mali quidem sunt in ecclesia, sed non 
cle ecclesia; quia mali non sunt de regno Dei, 
sed de regno, diaboli." Bellarmine confesses that 
such is the declaration of those writers, but tries 
to evade it by saying that the wicked are not 
in the church in the same sense as others, while 
he contends that they nevertheless do truly con- 
stitute a true part of the true church. 

Nothing can be more satisfactory to a protestant, 
on this head, than the language of the Provincial 
Council of Cologne in its Enchiridion of Christian 
Institutions, where it speaks of the Article of the 

6 



62 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHUKCH AND 

Creed on the Catholic Church, after dividing the 
church into triumphant and militant. Of the latter, 
it says: "The church militant is to be regarded 
under two aspects ; first, more strictly, as consisting 
of those who are so in the church of God, that they are 
themselves the church of God, or the Temple of the 
Holy Ghost, built of holy stones. The Church in 
this sense is known only to God. But such is not the 
sense in which the word Church is to be taken, 
either where Christ gives command concerning 
hearing the church, or where the fathers, after the 
Apostles, speak of the authority of the Church."* 

But such is not the doctrine of the Church 
of Eome, as the Council of Trent has decreed 
it, and as its expositor and vindicator, Bellar- 
mine, exhibits it. That the visible Church, with 
all its mixture, is the one holy, Catholic, living, 
Church of God, to which belong all the promises 
given to Christ's living, mystical body; and that 
every baptized person who is neither excommu- 
nicate, a heretic, infidel, or schismatic, is a true 
member of that Church, is a doctrine essentially 
involved in her whole Tridentine system. By 
Baptismal Eegeneration/ and Justification, as held 
in the Church of Eome, the baptism of water 
and the inward renewing^of the Holy Ghost are so 
identified, that all who have received the former are 
declared to have received, ex opere operate, the latter, 

* Encliirid. Christian. Instit. fol. 65, quoted by Jackson, 
b. xii. c. vii. § V. 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 63 

and to have thus become spiritually the children of 
God by adoption and grace. Then ; for that part of 
the baptized who have fallen into mortal sin, and 
thus lost their baptismal purity, and who have not 
taken advantage of the sacrament of penance to 
reinstate them in the favour of Grod, and are there- 
fore continuing under deadly sin, their faith dead, 
she kindly pronounces that they have true faith and 
are true Christians still; she pronounces anathema 
on any who shall say "that when grace is lost by 
sin, faith is lost together with it ; or that the faith 
which remains is not true faith, though it be not 
living ; or that a man is not a christian who has 
faith without hve?* Thus as the devils " believe and 
tremble''' which is more than can be said of many of 
these believers, we must take care when we speak 
even of their state, lest we incur the anathema of 
Eome. 

The Catechism of the Council of Trent declares 
accordingly, as the authentic interpreter of the coun- 
cil, that " however wicked and flagitious men may be, 
it is certain that unless they be infidels, heretics 
and schismatics, or excommunicate," (which would 
cut them off from the visible church) "they still be- 
long to the Church."f This expansive pale includes 
in the true membership of the true living Church 
of true Christians, the very worst as well as the best, 
if only they be neither heretics, schismatics, infidels 

* Council of Trent, Can. XXVIII. Sess. VI. 
f Catechism, pp. 94, 95.— Bait. Ed. 1'833. 



64 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHUECH AND 

or excommunicate. Thus is obtained a visible body 
for the possessor of infallibility, as well as of all the 
other gifts and graces of God's true Church ;— this 
same terribly permixta ecclesia, which we call the 
visible Church, and which the Scriptures liken to a 
great net which catches the good and the bad. It 
now only remains for the Church of Eome to 
settle the representation of this Church, so as to fix 
the definite, accessible seat of the infallible oracle, 
and at what points the grace given to the whole body 
can be drawn out by the individual applicant. The 
latter she readily arranges between the Sacraments 
and the Priesthood, multiplying the Sacraments for 
the sake of increasing the prerogatives of the Priest- 
hood. The former is yet a vexata qucestio, between 
General Councils, as representatives of the Church, 
and the Pope, as the Yicar of Christ, and both 
united as the combined representation of the Head 
and the members. The settlement of that question 
is not necessary to the practical working of the sys- 
tem. General Councils are not likely soon again to 
appear for their claim. — Meanwhile the Pope is the 
ecclesia docens, the practically conceded depositary of 
infallibility. He is holder of the keys, and the ulti- 
mate controller of the several agencies, by which the 
grace committed to the Church is dispensed to the 
several members of the whole body, whether on 
earth or in purgatorial pains. Take away from be- 
neath his feet these two props — -first, the pretence 
that every baptized person is spiritually and inter- 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINT s". 65 

nally renewed, ex opere operato ; secondly, that to be a 
true christian and have "true faith," and so to be a 
true member of God's Church, does not require that 
a man should have "faith that worketh by love," or 
be else than " most wicked or flagitious ;" establish 
in their place the Scriptural doctrine that the Church 
of the promises, "the pillar and ground of the 
truth," the communion of saints, and the holy 
Catholic Church, the living, mystical body of Christ 
is composed only of those who are "in Christ 
Jesus " by a living, fruitful faith ; and the foun- 
dations of that whole city of abominations will be- 
come as quicksand. 

Hence the pains taken by our old Anglican di- 
vines of the sixteenth and seventeenth century, to 
make plain the distinction between the church visible 
and invisible, " for lack of diligent observing of 
which the oversights are neither few nor light that 
have been committed." 

It requires no great perspicacity to observe in 
many ministers of our Protestant Church of these 
United States, a great lack of the diligent observing 
of that difference ; and the oversights which have 
ensued, and do still increase, are neither few nor 
light, but so many and weighty as to affect in a very 
important degree the great interests of gospel truth. 
The whole matter Concerning Eegeneration and Jus- 
tification, as connected with the Sacraments, and all 
the language of the Scriptures, the early Fathers, 

and the early anglican divines, would be much 
E 6* 



66 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH AND 

more correctly and easily understood were that dif- 
ference well seen and forcibly fixed in the mind. 

Peculiar circumstances have tended so much to 
draw the minds of the Protestant Episcopal ministry 
in this country, to the study and defence of those 
visible institutions which are peculiar to an Episco- 
pal Church and which we believe to be apostolic in 
origin, that it is apprehended there are not a few 
minds not unfavorably disposed, that have become 
so unused to the old Anglico-Protestant views of 
the Church as it is invisible or mystical, that 
our undisguised exhibition of them here will seem 
almost new. Such minds, on a little reflection, 
will come to their true bearings. The slightest 
effort to controvert those views from Scripture, or 
in consistency with other great truths of the gospel, 
will convince them that nothing else can be true, 
and that the whole doctrine is both anglican and 
scriptural. The tendency in the present day among 
many, in the precise direction by which the Eomish 
Church arrived at its present doctrine, has suggested 
the importance of giving those views the prominence 
they occupy in these pages. And that no reader 
may be at a loss to know how entirely the doctrine 
of these pages is identical, in every particular, with 
that which our Hookers, and Taylors, and Ushers, 
&c, most earnestly taught, a series of extracts from 
such authorities is added in the Appendix, to which 
the reader's careful attention is requested. 

We have taken Cranmer and Ridley for the times 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 67 

of the Keformation — Jewel and Hooker for the days 
immediately succeeding — Bishops Taylor and Hall, 
Archbishop Usher, Drs. Jackson and Perkins for 
the trying times of the early part of the 17th cen- 
tury — and Isaac Barrow for those immediately suc- 
ceeding. 

Thus we have representatives of all classes and 
schools of English divines, of the times above men- 
tioned. And it will be seen, that among these great 
writers there was not the least difference of opinion 
as to the points now in view. That the true 
Church is composed only of the true children and 
people of God, united by a living faith to Christ ; 
that none others have any real membership in God's 
Church, however they may be externally associated 
with it in visible ordinances ; that this Church is the 
Holy Catholic Church, and Communion of Saints ; 
having all its being in the union of its several mem- 
bers, by faith, immediately to Christ.; that this is the 
mystical body of Christ, as nothing else can be ; 
that it is invisible, because while its members on 
earth are personally visible, their distinction as such 
from all merely nominal or professed members is 
invisible ; that this and no other is the Church to 
which all the promises are given, just as real be- 
lievers among the children of Abraham were the 
only Church to which the promises then made, be- 
longed ; finally that this Church, mystical and in- 
visible, is "the pillar and ground of the truth," 
against which "the gates of hell shall not prevail/' 



68 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH AND 

to which belongs essentially the Unity of the Spirit, 
however the bond of peace, in the common use of 
creeds and sacraments may be broken ; the reader 
will find this to be the concurrent testimony of those 
unquestionable witnesses of the doctrine of the Pro- 
testant Episcopal Church in their respective times.* 

* See Appendix B., especially the extract from Bp. Taylor, as 
the fullest and most precise. 



THE COMMUNION" OF SAINTS. 69 



CHAPTEE VI. 

UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 

From the view we have taken of the essential 
constitution of the Church, as composed exclusively 
of those who are "in Christ Jesus" not only by the 
external tie of ordinances and profession, but by the 
internal, vital, bond of participation in his sancti- 
fying Spirit, we perceive plainly in what consists 
the essential Unity of the Church. 

The prayer of our blessed Lord for Unity among 
his people has been, is and ever shall be fulfilled. 
He prayed concerning his people, "That they all 
may be one ; as thou Father art in me and I in thee, 
that they also may be one in us;" and again, "that 
they may be one even as we are one ; I in them 
and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in 
one."* 

It is a most inadequate interpretation of these 
words, to suppose that the Saviour's mind rested 

* Johnxvii; 21, 23. 



70 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHUECH AND 

mainly, or to any considerable degree, upon matters 
of external union, such as ecclesiastical regimen or 
professions of faith. It is no undervaluing of such 
things to say that the unity here spoken of is infi- 
nitely more than mere unanimity, " since it rests 
upon unity of Spirit and life, and the perfect com- 
munication of all good things pertains to its mani- 
festations. Unity of doctrine, without the unity of 
life and of faith, on the part of all the individuals, 
comes amazingly short of a fulfilment of this solemn 
prayer of our Lord."* 

Let us suppose a body of professing Christians 
entirely unanimous and united among themselves, 
in all professed doctrines of faith, and under one 
ecclesiastical regimen ; all baptized and receiving the 
Supper of the Lord, under the same administration; 
all regularly worshiping by the same Liturgy, and 
that Liturgy the most scriptural on earth. A more 
perfect example of visible church unity cannot be 
imagifled. But does all this make any approach 
to such a union as that for which Jesus prayed ? 
Does it follow that those thus united by doctrine 
and ecclesiastical consent are one in Christ, in any 
sense as he was one with the Father ? May there 
not exist among them, such a division, a gulph so 
wide, that part of them shall be of the world, 
while the rest are "not of the world;" part governed 
by "the spirit that ruleth in the children of dis- 

* Tholuck on St. John. 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 71 

obedience," while the rest are "led by the Spirit 
of God;" part confessing Christ in heart and 
life, while others, whatever their profession of faith, 
are living in the practical denial of his claims, and 
will? 

But what an awful division is this ! What divi- 
sions in point of external order and government; what 
differences in doctrinal confession can compare with 
this in importance ? Under all the diversities and 
separations which divide the Visible Church into 
contending denominations, we can easily conceive 
there may be true followers of Christ, who are 
spiritually one in him, children of the one adoption 
and heirs together of the same eternal blessedness. 
But under this division, we can have no such con- 
solation. The two sides are separated by the great 
gulph which divides the kingdom of Christ from the 
kingdom of darkness and eternal death. That ex- 
ternal union which we have described, may become 
universal in the world, so that all professed chris- 
tians shall be of one mind as to all ecclesiastical re- 
lations, ordinances, and confessions of faith ; but as 
long as that internal separation remains it is union but 
in form, valuable to certain ends and objects of the 
Church we doubt not, but not bridging over, in the 
least, the actual, spiritual, essential, immeasurable 
division.* 

* It must not be inferred that we lightly esteem the importance 
of that external unity because we regard it as only external ; nor 



72 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH AND 

Now, not only is there in the visible Church just 
that vast division running into all its parts and de- 
nominations, crossing all external lines, and making 
its awful oppositions of spiritual character, dominion, 
life, influence and eternal prospect, no matter what, 
here and there, may be the external agreement ; not 

that we depict with, too strong coloring the vast separation be- 
tween the two great classes which exist nnder the same profes- 
sion in the visible Chnrch. We have not expressed ourselves as 
strongly as the "judicious" Hooker. He describes the Unity 
of the Visible Church as consisting ' ' in that uniformity which all 
several persons thereunto belonging have, by reason of that one 
Lord whose servants they profess to be ; that one Faith which 
they all acknowledge ; that one Baptism wherewith they are all 
initiated. The visible Church of Jesus Christ is therefore one 
in outward profession of these things which supernaturally apper- 
tain to the very essence of Christianity and are necessarily re- 
quired in every particular man. If by external profession they 
be Christians, then they are of the visible Church of Christ, yea 
although they be impious Idolaters, wicked Heretics, persons 
excommunicable, yea, and cast out for notorious improbity. 
Such withal we deny not to be imps and limbs of Satan, even as 
long as they continue such. Is it then possible Casks HookerJ 
that the self-same men should belong both to the Synagogue of 
Satan and to the Church of Jesus Christ ? Unto that Church 
which is his mystical body, not possible : because that body 
consisteth of none but only true Israelites, true sons of Abra- 
ham, true servants and saints of God. Howbeit of the visible 
Body and Church of Jesus Christ, these may be and often are, 
in respect of the main parts of their outward prof ession, who in 
regard of their inward disposition of mind, &c, are most worthily 
hateful in the sight of God himself, and in the eyes of the 
sounder part of the visible Church, most execrable." Eccl. Pol. 
b. iii. § i. 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 73 

only has such been the case from the beginning of 
the Church ; but we know, from the scriptures, espe- 
cially from our Lord's parables concerning the 
kingdom of heaven, such as that of the wheat and tares 
in the same field, growing together till harvest, that 
such is to be the case until his coming again. We 
need not cite that parable at length. The reader 
will mark that the field there described" is one in 
point of visible boundary — one in object, owner and 
culture. At a little distance it all seems what it is 
called, and is designed to be a, field of wheat. Such, 
in other words, it is visibly. But a nearer inspection 
shows that the oneness is only in appearance. In 
reality, there are two growths in that field between 
which there is an entire separation of nature, and 
opposition of origin. Part is tare. Part wheat. 
The former sprang from seed which an enemy 
sowed ; the latter from seed which the husbandman 
sowed. This is precious ; the other vile. But they 
are so mingled together ; their roots are so inter- 
twined, and their aspects are so alike, that they 
must grow together till harvest, and then be sepa- 
rated when only it can be safely done. Then the 
wheat will be garnered and the tares burned. Such, 
our Lord taught, is the Church on earth. Such it 
will be till his second coming shall bring the angels 
to make the separation. 

The question then is this, can that agreement in 
mere externals, covering such essential division in 
all vital relations and interests, be justly considered 



74 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH AND 

as fulfilling the prayer of our Lord for oneness in his 
church. Was it only that for which he so solemnly 
prayed when he said ; " As thou Father art in 
me and I in thee, that they may be one in us?" 
What he did pray for is no doubt described 
under his own illustration of the vine and its 
branches, the latter in union one with another by 
their union with the life of the one vine. St. Paul 
expressed the same, under the figure of the several 
members of a living body in union with one another 
by a common union with the one head. But in the 
mere external unity, which we have supposed, is 
there any correspondence to these inspired simili- 
tudes? When you have bound together a number 
of branches, some withered and dead, others alive, 
into one orderly association, so as to look like a 
vine and its branches, have yoa formed any union 
approximating to that which exists between branches 
which have one common life, all abiding in the vine 
and the vine in them ? 

The Saviour's prayer is, "That they all may he 
one. 11 We ask, in what sense " one ?" and who are 
the "all?" He proceeds to speak of an internal, 
spiritual oneness. He says nothing now of any visi- 
ble relations. He speaks of a oneness which only 
God can make ; not of any which man's ministra- 
tions, dispensing visible ordinances, can institute. 
"As thou } Father } art in me and I in thee, that they 
also may he one in us, that they may he one, even as we 
are one." What less can we understand from this 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 75 

extremely exalted language than that the Saviour 
prayed that all his disciples might be one in Him, 
by all partaking of His Spirit, and thus abiding in 
him, as he is one with the Father, by possession 
from all eternity of the same essential divinity ? 

Such being unquestionably the meaning of the 
prayer, or, at least, nothing less being its mean- 
ing; and seeing that in the Visible Church are 
contained all the fearful mixtures and oppositions 
of spiritual character described above ; if the whole 
Visible Church, as such, be that body in which the 
Saviour expected his prayer to be fulfilled, then not 
only has that prayer been to this day unfulfilled, 
but what is much more, we know from the Sa- 
viour's own prediction, that thus unfulfilled it is to 
be until his coming again, when wheat and tares are 
to be forever separated by the judgment of the great 
day. Here then is a strange contradiction. Our 
Lord, according to the idea we are contending 
against, prayed that his church on earth might be 
one in a certain sense, and yet foretold that in that 
sense it would never be one ; he offered a prayer, 
and then pronounced that his prayer would not be 
granted. But this is impossible. His prayer will be 
answered, has been answered, for he never prayed 
in vain. "Thou hearest me always, 11 he said, when 
praying at the grave of Lazarus. At the same time, 
the account of the mixed state of the visible church 
is also true and will be true to the end. The prayer 
and the narrative are consistent with one another. 



76 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH AND 

But how ? By having reference to two different 
aspects of what is called the Church, When he 
said " the kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man 
which sowed good seed in his field/' &c, he spoke of 
the visible the professed church, as embracing all 
that participate in christian ordinances. But when 
he prays " that all may be one, as thou Father art 
in me," &c, he refers as the context shows, to those 
whom he had just before described, as " not of the 
world, even as he is not of the world" together with 
all those who like them should ever believe on him 
through their word. For all such as were, or are, or 
ever shall be, " of the world " however called Chris- 
tians, or embraced in the visible church, he expressly 
said, in this very connection, that he did not then 
pray, when he prayed for the unity of his people. "/ 
pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast 
given me, for they are thine, and I am glorified in 
them." Consequently it was not the whole visible 
Church, as including the world and those not of 
the world, but that inner company of professed be- 
lievers who are such in spirit and truth ; it was 
the Invisible Church of which we have been 
speaking, for the oneness of which the Saviour 
prayed. Consequently, if that prayer has been, or 
shall be fulfilled, it must be looked for amongst 
its members, and must be found in those relations to 
one another and to their Lord in which they are 
spiritually distinguished from other professed disor 
ples of Christ. 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 77 

Now we take the position that in that " blessed 
company of all faithful people," the prayer of our 
blessed Lord has been essentially fulfilled from the 
day it was uttered ; that in the same company it 
will be so fulfilled to the end of the world ; and that 
it will be perfectly accomplished when " the perfect- 
ing of the saints " shall be completed, and when the 
last remnant of sin and imperfection in his people 
shall be obliterated ; in that day when the Lord shall 
" present the Church to himself a glorious Church 
not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing." We 
take the position that " they all" for whom Jesus 
prayed, all true believers, all in whose real conver- 
sion and sanctification the power and love of Christ 
are glorified, all who have been chosen out of the 
world and are not of it, by having the Spirit of 
Christ, are now really and essentially one, in the 
sense desired by their Lord. They may be scattered 
among all nations, all mixtures, and all sections of 
the visible Church. They may be named by all 
the various names that indicate the confessions and 
divisions which have rent asunder the visible Church, 
as such ; they may be exceedingly wide apart in 
outward, ecclesiastical relations; but, as true be- 
lievers in Jesus, they are all, essentially, though 
far, as yet, from being perfectly, what he prayed they 
might be, one body in Him their Head, one body 
with all those blessed ones of all generations and 
all nations, who have entered into rest, and are now 
in the perfectness of the saints. They are one in 



78 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH AND 

the highest sense in which the scriptures ever speak 
of oneness in the Church ; one in the highest sense 
in which oneness among Christians can be conceived 
of, and in comparison with which all the unity of 
mere ecclesiastical agreement in creeds and ordi- 
nances, important as it is, must be regarded as of 
little value.* In what does it consist? "We 
answer : In having one Lord and Head, Jesus Christ, 
not professedly merely, but in spirit and truth ; in 
having, in him, one hope, and from him, one life, by 
receiving his Spirit. "He that is joined to the Lord 
is one Spirit" said St. Paul; that is, has one Spirit, 
with the Lord, by being united to him ; and that 

* " It is not the variety of by-opinions that can exclude them 
from having their part in that one Catholic Church and their 
just claim to the Communion of Saints. While they hold the 
solid and precious foundation, it is not the hay or stubble which 
they lay upon it, that can set them off from God or his Church.' ' 

' ' Neither is it, nor ever shall be in the power of all the 
fiends of hell, to make God's Church other than one, which 
were indeed utterly to extinguish and reduce it to nothing,' ' 
"In spite of all devils there shall be saints. In all the main 
principles of religion, there is a unanimous consent of all Chris- 
tians and these are they that constitute a Church. Those that 
agree in these ; Christ is pleased to admit as members of that 
body whereof he is head, and if they admit not of each other as 
such, the fault is in the uncharitableness of the refusers, no 
less than in the error of the refused. And if any vain and loose 
stragglers will needs sever themselves and wilfully choose to go 
ways of their own; let them know that the union of Christ's 
Church shall consist entire without them. This great ocean wih 
be one collection of waters, when these drops are lost in thb 
dust." Bp. HalVs Christ Mystical. 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 79 

Spirit is the Holy Ghost, by whom the Lord be- 
comes " the Life " of his people. Thus the believer's 
union to Christ consists in his having the Spirit of 
Christ, and so abiding in him. And as this is the 
essential character of all true Christians, they are all 
thus joined to one another, in the one Lord and 
Head. This is the nearest union that can be con- 
ceived of, and such as never takes place but by the 
interposition of the mysterious and immediate power 
of God. We can tie things together and say they 
are united ; but we cannot really unite them. We 
make a mechanical junction of parts; God only makes 
a vital union of natures. We place parts in near- 
ness to one another, so near, it may be, that the eye 
can see no separation. Essential separation there 
is, nevertheless. God only makes parts grow to- 
gether, and into one another, so as to have the unity 
of a common life. We can insert a graft into a 
stock, and tie it there, so that it shall look as it 
united to the stock. But if nothing take place be- 
yond what our power can do; if the mysterious 
power of God interpose not, the graft will be dead, 
being alone. Its appearance of union will remain 
only till you examine it closely. Then you see the 
difference between being joined by outward bonds 
and united by an invisible life. At the side of that 
graft, is another, tied in the same way to the stock, 
and wearing to the distant observation the same 
aspect. But a power has been at work on that which 
no human skill can imitate. There has taken place 



80 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH AND 

a mysterious communication of life from the stock. 
You may take away your bandages. Beneath them 
is a wonderful union of nature. The graft is joined 
to the stock by having one life therewith. Such is 
" the Unity of the Spirit/' in Christ. Those band- 
ages of the graft are the institutions of the Visible 
Church. They have their important uses. But the 
union they make is not the union which God's 
Spirit makes. Under them, and by blessing upon 
them, but so that often they cover nothing but 
the dead and withered, God's Spirit alone forms 
the union by which Christ becomes to a sinner's 
soul, u the Life" and that soul is made a branch 
of the True Vine. 

Such union of every true christian to Christ, and 
thus to all other christians, as living members of 
the same body, under one living Head, the Lord of 
all, is the oneness of the Church of Christ, the one- 
ness of his mystical body, of his kingdom, of his 
household, of his temple, "of whom the whole family 
in heaven and earth is named." It is a union ever 
growing towards the final perfectness, as each in- 
dividual member grows in the participation of the 
Spirit of Christ. Because of its present imperfect- 
ness it is that among those so united agreement in 
professions of faith and in action for the promotion 
of the gospel is yet so imperfect. We may be one 
in Christ, and yet, through dimness of vision, may 
not see eye to eye, nor know one another as we are 
known of him. The unity may be essentially true 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 81 

and yet have much growth to make in inward 
strength and outward development; just as each 
member therein is a true christian, but needing 
to grow much in grace before he can glorify 
his Master to the full measure of the Master's 
will.* 

There is a part of our Lord's prayer for the unity 
of his church which is so often quoted in evidence 
that the unity prayed for is that of the visible Church 

* Extract from Archbishop Usher: — "What ties together and 
makes one, things asunder, but the same spirit and life in both ? 
So that Spirit which is in Christ, a full running over fountain 
descending down, and being also infused unto us, unites us 
unto him ; yea that Spirit doth tie me as fast unto Christ as any 
joint ties member to member, and so makes Christ to dwell in 
my heart. Thus, by one Spirit, we are built up and made 
the Temple of God and come to be the habitation of God, through 
the Spirit ; so that by this means, we are inseparably knit and 
united unto him ; for what is it makes one member to be a mem- 
ber to another ? Not the nearness of joining or lying one to, 01 
upon, another, but the same quickening spirit and life which is 
in both. So is it with us ; that very Spirit which is in Christ 
being in us, thereby we are united unto him, grow in him and he 
in us ; rejoice in him, and so are kept and preserved to be glori- 
fied in him." Usher'' s Sermon on the Seal of Salvation, We add 
a beautiful passage from Hooker. "They which belong to the 
mystical body of our Saviour Christ, and be in number as the 
stars of heaven, divided successively by reason of their mortal 
condition, into many generations, are notwithstanding coupled 
every one to Christ, their head, and all unto every particular 
person among themselves, inasmuch as the same spirit which 
anointed the blessed soul of our Saviour Christ doth so unite 
and actuate his whole race, as if both he and they were so many 
limbs compacted into one body, by being quickened all with one 
and the same soul." Bocl. Fol. b. v. § 56. 
F 



82 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH AND 

in its external features and communion, and not that 
alone which we have now described, that we cannot 
omit to notice it here. We quote the whole passage: 
" That they all may be one, as thou Father art in 
me and I in thee, that they also may be one in us : 
that the world may believe that thou hast sent meP 
And in a subsequent verse these words are added to 
"thou hast sent me, 57 namely "and hast loved them as 
thou hast loved me." (v. 23.) 

Now the idea is that as the unity of which we 
have been speaking is invisible, consisting in an in- 
ternal conjunction, by one Spirit, in Christ, and 
therefore is not cognizable by the world, so as to be 
in its eyes an evidence of the divine mission of 
Christ, it must be the visible unity of agreement in 
the same confession of faith and the same ordinances 
of worship and essentially the same form of church- 
administration for which our Lord made his suppli- 
cation. But if this be the only or the chief unity 
prayed for in the passage before us, we confess our- 
selves unable to see in what respect, were it attained 
to a much greater extent than it is, it would furnish 
to the world any very conclusive evidence of the di- 
vine mission of Jesus. And especially are we un- 
able to see in what respect it would be any evidence 
at all that the Father loves those in whom it ap- 
pears, as He loves our Lord Jesus Christ; according 
to the 23rd verse just cited. We easily understand 
that dissensions among professing christians on 
points of faith and modes of worship, do furnish the 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 83 

world with convenient and most influential weapons 
against the reality of the gospel, and the heavenly 
mission of our Lord. But it does not follow that 
the absence of such dissensions, would afford any 
valid, or at best any conclusive, argument in proof of 
that mission. There is such external unity in the 
church of Rome, and it is vastly gloried in, as if our 
Lord's petition were fulfilled in that hierarchy as no 
where else, and consequently a sanction given to 
that church such as none other on earth possesses. 
But in what respect does, or should, that unity 
seem to the world a convincing proof of the di- 
vine mission of our Lord ? Agreement in a creed 
is surely no conclusive evidence of its truth. 
Union under one government, marching under one 
banner, is no evidence that the cause is good, or the 
title of the ruler just. There is very much of this 
sort of unity among Mohammedans ; but how it 
tends to prove the divine mission of Mohammed we 
see not. 

But, it may be said, that when to such agreement, 
is added, the unity of love ; when to agreement in 
judgment is added oneness in mutual affection, so that 
the world sees professing christians evidently bound 
together in spirit, as well as form ; then is it not in- 
telligible how such unity may be a strong argument 
with the world? Certainly; but by this addition of 
love; in other words, of an inward and invisible bond, 
to the outward and visible, you have come to 
an evidence which belongs not to the visible church, 



84 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH AND 

as such, an evidence with which, its visible institu- 
tions have no necessary connection, though designed 
for, and tending to its promotion. You have got on 
the ground of the invisible church; for true christian 
love of the brethren is found only among those who 
are truly children of God. On tkis ground indeed, 
that is, supposing our Lord to have referred, in his 
prayer, to that "unity of the Spirit," which is found, 
essentially, in all who truly believe in and follow 
him, we can well understand in what respect its 
manifestation, by its proper fruits, may be a most 
powerful evidence to the world that Jesus was sent 
by the Father, and that his Gospel is true. When 
the heathen said of the primitive christians "See how 
they love one another" and when that sight operated, 
as it did, to convince the heathen that christians 
were followers of a divine Lord and Master, it was 
the unity for which Jesus prayed, fulfilling the pre- 
cise end for which he desired it. It was not that 
they were joined together under the same visible 
institutions or confession that thus drew the admira- 
tion of the heathen ; but that they were so marvel- 
lously one in spirit. The argument was : If they 
so love one another, then they are of the same spirit 
one with another. And seeing that they have come 
from out of all nations, all classes, all diversities and 
oppositions of mind, of habit, disposition, yea and of 
enmities, such unity of spirit, can be accounted for 
only on the supposition, not only of one head whom 
they all love, but of one living head, who, (as they 



THE COMMUNION" OP SAINTS. 85 

profess) having been once crucified, is now alive and 
has power thus to transform his disciples, taken out 
of all nations and characters into such marvellous 
unity of spirit. 

And this indeed is just the argument which we 
now use with the world. We say, there is a marvel- 
ous unity among the true people of God. Take a 
real christian, in any part of the earth. Draw his 
spiritual likeness. Then take it to any other part 
of the world and compare it with the spiritual aspect 
of any true follower of Christ there. It is essen- 
tially the same countenance. There is a remarkable 
oneness of character, of disposition, of affection. 
" Among all the cases of genuine conversion to 
Christ, in all ages and regions and circumstances, 
and with all varieties of character, there has been a 
wonderful identity. The same effects, essentially, 
have ensued, under the application of the same gos- 
pel, in the present century as in the time of St. 
Paul ; in modern Europe, as in ancient Greece and 
Eome ; in Hindostan, as in North America ; among 
Hottentots, and the islanders of the South Sea and 
savages of our western borders, as among the 
polished inhabitants of New York or London. 
While all these varieties of age, elements, customs 
and cultivation, give a natural and pleasing variety 
to what may be called, in a figure, the complexion 
and costume in which the conversion appears ; the 
great change itself exhibits under all circumstances, 
the same characteristic and inimitable features ; in- 



86 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH AND 

somuch that if you draw the likeness of a genuine 
convert to Christ, in his chief peculiarities, as mani- 
fested in this country and send it to Burmah, or to 
the Sandwich Islands ; or to Caffre-land or to Green- 
land, it will be considered a good likeness, in main 
points, of the dispositions, affections, tempers, habits 
and life produced by the converting power of the 
gospel in any of those widely different regions. A 
genuine convert to Christ, in China, or in Africa, 
may come to this country, and find among genuine 
christians here, his own feelings, tastes, sympathies 
and labours, as a christian, though he never saw an 
American or European before ; and he will be more 
at home among their christian feelings, than he can 
be among the manners and dispositions of the people 
among whom he grew up, and to whom he was once, 
in these respects, as entirely assimilated as he is now 
opposed."* 

Now this is but the manifestation of the essential 
oneness of all true christians, in Christ. It is just 
because "he that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit" 
And the world cannot help taking knowledge of it. 
And it is the more impressive to the world, because 
of the very absence of that agreement in external 
institutions which would make them all one, in form, 
as well as spirit. In spite of so much want of ex- 
ternal unity in the visible Church, there is the mar- 
vellous manifestation of unity in the true, invisible, 

* Evidences of Christianity by the present author. 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 87 

Church. The question must be answered Whence 
does it come? Have they created it ? Has the chris- 
tian of Greenland who never saw any land but his 
own frozen zone, created in himself a likeness to the 
christian of America? or of Hindostan? Or did 
the Missionary who carried to him the gospel, exert 
such marvellous power as to transform his nature 
into such resemblance ? What power is it that has 
been so at work, in all lands and all ages, doing 
every where the same work, with such infinitely 
varied and vastly discordant character, everywhere 
with the same spiritual result ? The only answer is 
the power of God. Nothing else. Thus it is all evi- 
dence, and powerful evidence too, that the Gospel is 
of God, and that the Christ of the Gospel is of God. 
And thus the unity among all the true disciples of 
Christ is the very argument which the Saviour 
prayed it might be, " that the world may believe that 
thou hast sent me" And the more the whole fellow- 
ship of Christians, thus one, shall become u perfect in 
one" as the prayer entreats; the more nearly each 
member of that unity shall be "joined to the Lord M 
by the participation more abundantly of his Spirit, so 
much the more will that unity of spiritual being be 
manifested in all godly affections. Thus will love 
abound and the mental vision be cleared, and thus 
the more will the way be prepared for more har- 
mony and working together in all labors of chris- 
tian zeal, under the ordinances and in the fellowship 
of the visible Church, and thus the more will grow 



88 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH AND 

before the world, the great argument for Christ, 
that he who does all this in his people, is the Christ 
of God. 

In answer to all this, we suppose that some reader 
may say : But how does such manifestation of the 
church as one, by the inward union of every soul to 
Christ, and thus to every soul similarly united to 
Christ agree to the idea of an invisible Church? 
If the spiritual features in which that Church 
differs from all that part of the Visible Church, 
which is christian by profession only, be invisi- 
ble how can the unity of that Church be dis- 
cerned ? The answer is easy. The Church is in- 
visible not in the sense of true christians being not 
known by the effects of true religion in their lives, 
as a tree is known by its fruits ; but in the sense of 
their not being in all cases infallibly discernible as 
true Christians, so that it may be accurately deter- 
mined in every case who is a true member of the 
mystical body of Christ, and who is such only in 
name. Will any deny that the wheat can make no 
manifestation of its unity of nature, because it is so 
mixed with the tare that you cannot in every case 
discern which is one and which the other ? Or will 
any pretend that such manifestation of nature is 
inconsistent with the idea of their being such a 
mixture of tares in the same field, that all of it 
is not really, but only apparently, a field of 
wheat ? 

It is only when we thus contemplate the Unity 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 89 

of the Church, of Christ, that we get the true appli- 
cation of his promise. " On this Eock will I build 
my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail 
against it." That Eock was Christ; not Peter who 
had just made his confession of Christ; not Peter's 
confession ; not merely the true doctrine then con- 
fessed concerning the person of Christ ; but Christ 
himself. On him the Church is built. In him it 
all consists. Of him, is all its life and being. Against 
it, as thus one in him, the gates of hell shall never 
prevail. Against the Church, in its visible unity, 
the wiles of the devil have so prevailed, for centuries, 
as to break that unity in pieces. But against the 
Church in the invisible union of every believer to 
Jesus, and thus of all believers one to another, in him, 
there is no power that can prevail. The promise is 
repeated under other terms, when the Lord declares : 
" My sheep hear my voice, and they follow me. And 
I give unto them eternal life and they shall never 
perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my 
hand." On this assurance rises the noble faith of 
St. Paul : "lam persuaded that neither death nor 
life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor 
things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor 
depth, nor any other creature shall be able to sepa- 
rate us from the love of Grod, which is in Christ Jesus 
our Lord." 

Blessed is the man, indeed, who is thus "in Christ 
Jesus," whose evidence is not merely that he has 
been sealed with Church-ordinances, but that he 

8* 



90 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH AND 

has received that " Holy Spirit of promise which is 
the earnest of our inheritance whereby we are sealed 
unto the day of redemption." To him "there is no 
condemnation." He was under condemnation while 
the Law beheld him only as in himself, clothed with 
his own righteousness. Now it beholds him in 
Christ clothed in all his righteousness, and repre- 
sented in all his obedience and sacrifice. Condemna- 
tion therefore toucheth him not. He is "justified 
by faith," and has " peace with God through our 
Lord Jesus Christ." 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 91 



CHAPTER VII. 

CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS. 

It has been no part of our plan, in these pages, to 
speak of the Church, in its aspect as visible, any 
further than was necessary to enable us distinctly 
to show what is meant by the Church as invisible. 
Whatever may be the case out of the bounds of our 
Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, 
we do not think there is comparatively any 
great need within her bounds, of calling atten- 
tion generally, to a higher valuation of those 
external things which make up the Church's 
visible form or manifestation. In some christian 
communities, no doubt, there is a serious demand 
for such writing, Under the idea of promoting, 
more purely and simply, the inner life of true reli- 
gion, there has been generated, in some quarters, a 
very injurious undervaluing of those outward ordi- 
nances, which, though not the life, are appointed of 



92 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH AND 

Grod, and are in a very important sense, connected with 
the spiritual life. But such is not the tendency among 
us. Quite a sufficient proportion of the attention of 
our authors, of our magazines, of our preaching, of 
our Sunday School teaching, to say the least, is 
given to the establishment of a strong sense of 
the necessity and obligation of that ecclesiastical 
order and polity which we believe to have come to 
us from the Apostles. Hence we have not seen it 
necessary, in these pages, to enter on any considera- 
tion of such topics. We have aimed exclusively at 
what seemed much more needed ; a right estimate 
of the essential necessity to the being of the church 
and to the reality of any spiritual membership there- 
in, of that inward life of faith, and of love, as the 
fruit of faith, for the promotion of which all the 
outward of the Church was designed and has all its 
value. 

But lest we should seem ; even negatively to look 
with little appreciation upon the importance of the 
Church's visible form to the accomplishment of her 
work in the earth, we may say a few words in that 
direction. Were we writing on the nature of man, 
and did we make a very distinct and wide difference 
between man, and man's body, between the intel- 
lectual, immortal man, and the form in which he 
resides in this world, treating the former as the 
being, and the latter only as the house he lives 
in, confining our attention to the former; it 
would not seem necessary to guard against the in- 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 93 

ference that we have little sense of the value of the 
body, or of the importance of keeping all its parts 
entire and all its functions in health. 

We do not think that the importance and duty of 
maintaining firmly what we consider of divine in- 
stitution in the visible form of the church to be, in 
any wise, affected by the essential distinction we 
have taught, between the Church as visible, and in- 
visible, as seen of men in the outward signs and pro- 
fession, and as she stands before Grod in her essen- 
tial, spiritual being. 

There is a passage of Hooker which we may use here 
for a text. "As those everlasting promises of love, 
mercy and blessedness belong to the mystical Church, 
even so on the other side, when we read of any duty 
which the Church of Grod is bound unto, the church 
whom this doth concern is a visible and known com- 
pany."* 

Let us apply this to the individual christian. 
When you speak of him in his inward, vital, 
relations to Grod, whom he worships "in spirit," 
in whom he believes with the heart, you speak of 
him in regard to that spiritual state in which he is 
invisible to man. But when you speak of that 
christian man as charged with certain duties of ex- 
ample and of active exertion towards his fellow crea- 
ures ; then it is the inward spirit as embodied in 
the visible and outward man, it is the godly soul, 

* Eccl. Pol. b. iii. § 1. 



94 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH AND 

operating through and by means of the visible body, 
that you have reference to; because it is only 
through the body that the spirit of man can be known, 
or can operate, among men. The body is the soul's 
divinely ordained instrument of communication and 
of manifestation in this life. It must be kept in 
tune therefore. Its cords must not be broken or 
neglected. We must dispense with nothing belong- 
ing to its proper integrity. Just as important as is 
the work of the christian, amidst the evils of this 
world ; so is the careful preservation, in the highest 
health, of all those bodily faculties by which alone 
his spiritual life can get into contact with, or be 
known to, the world. 

Let us transfer this illustration to the Church. 
When you consider it as the flock of Christ, or, the 
household of God, to which are made, and exclu- 
sively belong, God's everlasting promises of love, 
mercy and blessedness, wherein to be found, is to be 
assuredly saved, and not to be found, is to be eter- 
nally lost; then it is the Church in its inward, 
essential, spiritual being, before God, the Church as 
it is invisible to the world except by its fruits. But 
again when you consider the Church as the Light of 
the world, giving light, by teaching the truth, 
chiefly through an ordained ministry of men ; charged 
with great duties in the world which require con- 
tact and conflict with the world; then it is the Church 
as u a visible and known company; 11 it is the spiritual 
under sacramental signs and tangible forms; it 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 95 

is the inward soul become incarnate, in a well de- 
fined and easily discerned body; it is "the blessed 
company of all faithful people on earth. " appearing 
under the notes and professions, the sacraments 
and ministry, which are common to all that "call 
themselves Christians," and under which they are 
mixed up with a multitude who, while thus having 
a name to live, are spiritually dead. Only by such 
investment can the Church be placed in contact with 
the world, just as angels when they come among 
men, on embassies from God, to make their pre- 
sence known and their message received, put on the 
aspect of a human body, and are heard speaking in 
human forms of thought. Consequently, whatever 
the importance of that great work which God has 
committed to the Church, as the light of a benighted, 
and the leaven of a corrupt world ; so important is 
it that those institutions of divine appointment 
which constitute its visible organization, should 
be maintained in all possible integrity, and 
health. 

However possible it may be for the soul of man 
to live out of the body, it can not do so in this world. 
It must go away. However possible and very con- 
ceivable that the spirit of true religion may prosper 
in exceptional cases far removed by divine provi- 
dence from access to the ordinances of the Church .; 
we have no reason to suppose that it can flourish 
or long abide among any body of people, except 
as operating by, and living in, those ordinances* 



96 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH AND 

If a reason be asked, it is sufficient to answer as 
with reference to the similar dependence of the 
human soul upon the human body, So hath God 
ordained. " What God hath joined together, let no 
man put asunder." 

Concerning the Church as it is thus equipped for 
its work in the world, in sacramental signs, in an or- 
dained ministry and with "the sword of the Spirit 
which is the word of God," it has not entered into 
our design to speak more particularly in these 
pages. We have confined our attention to its only 
foundation, Christ Jesus the Lord; its only com- 
ponent parts and members, souls made alive in 
him, by coming to him in faith and receiving his 
Spirit ; its essential unity and communion, the union 
of all such members to Christ, by participation of 
his life, so as to be " members one of another." This 
Church thus composed, separated thus from all 
who, however joined with them in outward, sac- 
ramental, communion have no fellowship with 
them in the Spirit of Christ; however, it be 
indeed a little flock in comparison with the whole 
mixed company of nominal christians, is the only 
host of God for that great conflict with sin and 
hell, for the salvation of sinners, which has been 
so long waged, and of which, so much is j^et to 
be fought before Satan is bound in his millen- 
nial imprisonment.* When Gideon was sent 

* Rev. xx. 1, 2, 3. 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 97 

against the great host of Midian, he had vis- 
ibly a large army, thirty thousand. But it 
was only his apparent strength. There was dan- 
ger in reliance upon it. The real strength was 
within that force, in a much smaller number. The 
Lord of hosts applied his test of the true soldiery of 
Israel, and three hundred only remained to go against 
Midian. But the real force was not thereby reduced ; 
nor to the eye of faith was the hope of victory 
weakened. The Lord said : " By the three hundred 
men, I will deliver the Midianites unto thy hand." 
Such is the army of Grod against the principalities 
and powers that rule the darkness of this world. It 
is a little flock when you have reduced it to the true 
people of God, the true soldiery of Ohrist, in whom 
is his new name and into whose souls he has put his 
Spirit. But by these, saith the Lord, I will take the 
kingdom, and overcome the world. " Fear not, lit- 
tle flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to 
give you the kingdom." What if among them 
there be not many wise, nor many mighty, according 
to the estimate of wisdom and might prevailing in 
the world ; what if a great part consists of the poor 
of this world, the unlearned, the simple, the widows, 
the men of no station or worldly degree ! Never- 
theless the praying, the wrestling, the believing, they 
that wait on the Lord and so increase their strength 
are there ; the importunate widow who prevails by 
praying always and never fainting; they who are 
" strong in the Lord and in the power of his might," 
a 9 



98 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH AND 

children of faith whose weapons are "not carnal but 
spiritual and mighty through God," followers of 
those who "through faith, subdued kingdoms, out 
of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in 
fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens," 
they are there. " God is their refuge and strength, a 
very present help in trouble. Therefore will we not 
fear though the earth be removed and though the 
mountains be carried into the midst of the sea. The 
Lord of Hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our 
refuge." In that blessed company is the Ark of God, 
" the covenant of promise ." Whatsoever we read in 
scripture of the love of God toward his Church, or 
his designs in its behalf, or his power in its defence 
and strength, it is that little flock, " God's elect," 
that is meant. His name is there. — His temple is 
there. " Therefore is the strength of this habita- 
tion great indeed. It prevaileth against Satan, it 
conquereth sin, it hath death in derision, neither 
principalities nor powers can throw it down ; it 
leadeth the world captive, and bringeth every enemy 
that riseth up against it to confusion and shame, and 
all by Faith ; for this is the victory that overcometh 
the world, even our Faith."* 

But when we speak of the Church as a little flock, 
we must remember that it is only a generation of it, 
only so much of it as is yet in the journey and conflict 
of the wilderness, that we speak of. We are not in- 

* Hooker's Second Sermon on Jude, § 15. 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 99 

eluding all that have gone before and are now with 
God. We must think of that great congregation, 
the " multitude which no man can number," that 
" have washed their robes and made them white in 
the blood of the Lamb/' and who are now " before 
the throne." We must not forget how generations 
upon generations of God's true people, ever since 
the world began, have been ascending hence and 
taking position in those ranks and swelling the glo- 
rious array of that "royal priesthood" of "just men 
made perfect." That is the Church. There is its 
seat, its great household, its "'General Assembly." 
All we see of it here is but a fragment, and that so 
mixed, so feeble, so hidden, so compassed with infir- 
mities. But there is seen the vast and perfect "Com- 
munion of Saints." When shall we know what chris- 
tian communion is in any of its height and depth, 
till we reach that Assembly? There is seen the 
Church as it is Catholic indeed; gathered "out of all 
nations and kindreds and peoples and tongues" 
Glorious city of God! "I saw (saith St. John) no 
temple therein : for the Lord God Almighty and the 
Lamb are the temple of it — the glory of God did 
lighten it and the Lamb is the light thereof." 

Unto that heavenly perfectness, the church on 
earth is constantly growing. The visible form may 
in one age appear to be less widely extended; the 
number of its professing people, greatly diminished ; 
but the true House of God, of those whose names 
are written in heaven, continually is receiving en- 



100 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHUECH AND 

largement, as soul after soul is joined to Christ, 
"All things/' under him who is "head over all 
things/' for his Church, must work together for its 
good. The "wise Master Builder" is he who 
"ordereth all things after the counsel of His own 
will." The world is preserved only that this build- 
ing of God may have its completion, according to 
the design of its all- wise architect. When that is 
done, as done it will be, without the failure of a 
single word of promise, or the change of the least 
feature of the great plan of redemption, then the 
days of this world will be ended. Towards that 
consummation, the church is ever rising, "All the 
building, fitly framed together, groweth, (saith St. 
Paul) unto an holy temple in the Lord." In the 
Apostle's days, in all future days, in these days, it 
groweth. Persecution never stopped it. All the 
powers of darkness could never stop it. " In trou- 
blous times," when the people of God have seemed 
almost to cease from the earth and godliness has 
gone into the wilderness, driven away by the wrath 
of men, the temple has grown. It grows in height, 
as the spiritual attainments of God's people on earth 
approach towards "the measure of the stature of the 
fullness of Christ." It grows in amplitude, as more 
and more of the lost are gathered in and joined 
to the number "of such as shall be saved."' It grows 
in heaven, as its members cease from earth. It grows 
in purity and glory, as generations after generations 
cast off, at death, the remnants of sinfulness and infir- 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 101 

mity, and take their places, among the just men made 
perfect, clothed in the likeness of their glorified 
Lord. Little can our eyes discern this growth. 
The world knoweth it not. It " cometh not with 
observation/' In the temple made with hands, 
"there was neither hammer, nor any tool of iron 
heard while it was building." So in this spiritual 
house, eye doth not see, nor ear hear. In the heart 
of each true christian, the Spirit of God, in secret, 
carries on the work of his grace. So advances his 
work in the whole blessed company of his people on 
earth. Upon the outer courts, upon the visible 
church, in all that man has to do therewith, the 
noise of man's working is heard, with all its wonted 
confusion of tongues. Upon the inner sanctuary 
where God only builds, as the hand is unseen, so 
is the work silent, as when the foundations of the 
earth were laid. Always it " groweth unto a holy 
temple in the Lord." 

It is a notable fact, that in the temple of Solomon, 
the materials were gathered from so many and such 
distant regions. The isles of the sea, the quarries of 
Tyre, the forests of Lebanon, the mines of Ophir, 
all contributed to the structure. Prom all nations 
and kindreds and people and tongues, come the souls 
that are to compose forever and ever the Church of 
the living God. "The abundance of the sea shall be 
converted unto thee and the forces of the Gentiles 
shall come unto thee. The sons of strangers shall 
build thy walls and kings shall minister unto thee." 



102 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH AND 

Soon the worK will be done ; the scaffolding of the pre- 
sent ordinances will be laid aside ; the ministry of us 
men will be no more needed. The Church will be 
without spot or blemish, "her walls, salvation, her 
gates, praise." Then, as the divisions between earthly 
and heavenly, between militant and triumphant, be- 
tween the Church as now seen of men and the Church 
as always seen of God, shall cease, so will pass 
away the distinction of visible and invisible which 
the present condition of the church requires. The 
visible, the spiritual, the perfect, will be one. All 
gathered together in one glorious household of God; 
the new-creation complete; the work of redemption 
finished. Then the everlasting Sabbath ! the sweet 
rest, the boundless bliss, the joyful thanksgiving 
and praise of the Holy Catholic Church, in its 
fullness, the Communion of Saints in its perfectness. 
From the multitude that no man can number, arises 
the adoring worship of "Him that sitteth on the 
throne," and of "the Lamb that was slain," for 
the grace that gave to all "the forgiveness of 
sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life 
everlasting." 

" pray for the peace of Jerusalem I " Pray for 
the peace of God's Church on the earth ! We have 
been writing about "the Unity of the Spirit" therein. 
We are reminded of the exhortation of the Apostle, 
"Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in 
the bond of peace" The Church of Christ must have 
the unity of the Spirit, just so far as its members 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 103 

are partakers of Christ, and have received His 
Spirit. It cannot be severed. But how sadly the 
bond of peace is broken, among the several por- 
tions of the professing church, every eye sees. 
We doubt not indeed that there is vastly more 
unbroken peace than the Church has credit for. 
The contentions among christians in matters of re- 
ligion are greatly exaggerated in the estimate of the 
world. Differences of doctrine do not always create 
estrangement of affection. Separation into divers 
distinct ecclesiastical bodies, 'is not necessarily sepa- 
ration in point of personal religious attachment, or 
the reciprocities of Christian love. There is much 
breach of harmony in religious confessions and asso- 
ciations, when there is no breach of peace between 
christian and christian, as such. But, that over the 
deep seated and essential unity of the Spirit, per- 
vading the whole body of God's great living house- 
hold of faith, as over the unmoved heart of the ocean, 
in all its depth and length, there does exist on the 
surface, where the believer's infirmities and remaining 
corruptions appear, an agitation, a strife, a want of 
following after peace, a spirit of separation, of oppo- 
sition, of party jealousy, of sectarian animosity, 
manifesting much evil temper, and doing great injury 
to the cause of Christ in the world, and which cannot 
be excused by any considerations of duty in the 
resistance of error, we must all with sorrow of heart 
concede. It is one thing to differ with one another in 
matters of belief. It is another to be separated from 



104 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH AND 

one another in matters of brotherly kindness and 
charity, and to look with the evil eye of sectarian 
jealousy or detraction, one upon another, so that we 
cannot rejoice in good wherever we see it, nor cast 
the veil of charity upon evil when no interfe- 
rence of ours can remedy it. There is the duty of 
" contending earnestly for the faith once delivered 
to the saints;' 7 a duty which will remain as long as 
sin and Satan continue on the earth, and no love of 
peace can excuse us from the conflict required, 
though it be unto death. "With all error that wars 
against the Gospel, we must be at war. The bond 
of peace in which we are exhorted to keep the unity 
of the Spirit, does not bind us to be at peace with 
hurtful error ; but it does bind us to be at peace, 
as much as in us lies, with such as are in error. 
" Speaking the truth in love" is the Apostle's pre- 
cept for all such circumstances. And were the 
truth, in matters about which christians are divided 
and in contention with one another, only spoken, 
no matter how sharp the truth, in love; not merely in 
the words and tones, but out of the heart of love, so that 
contending earnestly for the truth, should always be 
contending lovingly for the truth; then how soon 
would contentions disappear, because love would 
place a new interpretation upon the importance of 
many of the disagreements ; separations be diminished 
in number because love would not tolerate a "mid- 
dle wall of partition," where the sacred interests of 
truth and righteousness are not involved. How soon 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 105 

would diversities of religious association, separating 
christians into different denominations, while as yet 
the way is not open for their return to one ecclesi- 
astical organization, become divested of the party 
spirit which genders strife, and exhibit, only in 
more beautiful aspect, that inward, spiritual, unit}^ 
of u all that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity," 
in which brethren of the adoption, in spite of varie- 
ties of opinion and form and visible association, are 
really of one heart, and do love one another. 

There is such a thing as keeping " the bond of 
peace," even after the bond of agreement in opinion 
and organization has been severed. " Charity, which 
is the bond of perfectness," keeps the former, when 
it cannot save the latter. " Let love be without dis- 
simulation," genuine love that " vaunteth not itself, 
behaveth not unseemly, is not puffed up, thinketh 
no evil, rejoiceth in the truth, hopeth all things, 
suffereth long and is kind;" let only such love 
abound, where diversities of sect among christians 
unhappily abound, and see how their evils, if not 
their numbers, will decrease. And such love, we 
think, would be materially promoted would chris- 
tians of different denominations who agree in the 
great essential doctrines of the Gospel and the 
great constituent graces of the christian character, 
only habituate themselves to the more frequent 
contemplation of their essential oneness in Christ, 
(as these pages have exhibited it,) rather than their 
disagreements on matters which affect not their 



106 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHUECH AND 

common hope and salvation. What is their dif- 
ference compared with their unity? The former is 
about matters which ; if important, are not vital. 
The latter is vital, essential. The former separates 
them into various ecclesiastical bodies. The latter 
keeps them all together in that one church which 
is the body of Christ. Those outward relations are 
temporal. Death dissolves them. We can associate 
together as of this denomination in the church, 
or that, only during the few days of this life. But 
we shall dwell together in our unity in Christ, 
forever and ever. "The communion of saints" is 
for everlasting. How much nearer to one another 
are two christians, as such, than as joined under 
the bonds of the same church-organization ! How 
much nearer two christians, by their oneness in 
Christ, though they be of different divsions in the 
visible Church, than any two professing christians, 
of the same denominational union, but neither of 
them a christian indeed. How much more closely 
and vitally joined together are the Episcopalian 
and the Presbyterian and the Methodist, each of 
whom is united to Christ in the oneness of the 
Spirit, than either can be to the brother in his own 
church, who is not in Christ. How will this ap- 
pear in that day when the reapers of this great 
harvest-field shall be sent forth, to separate the 
wheat from the tares, and He " whose fan is in his 
hand shall thoroughly purge his floor." There 
names will be nothing. Then to have belonged here 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 107 

or there, to this association of professing christians, 
or that, this confession of faith or that, will have no 
vital bearing upon the great question, whether we 
are Christ's or not. The only church-connection of 
any value will be that of the Church whose register 
of communicants is "the Lamb's book of life." The 
only question will be, who came to Jesus? who 
lived by faith in Jesus, who was found in Him? 
They will come from all nations and kindreds 
and tongues; they will come also from all sects 
and denominations of those who hold essentially 
the christian faith, and they will sit down together 
with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of 
God, one blessed, perfected, loving, everlasting, 
communion of saints ; while the communion of the 
lost will exhibit the like features, all denominations 
of professing christians there, none finding it an alle- 
viation of his woe, that he went to it out of the visi- 
ble fellowship of one church or another. Oh! the un- 
speakable preciousness of union to Christ, by faith, 
and to one another, by the same. "Who are my 
brethren ? Jesus answered, " He that doeth the will 
of my Father in heaven, the same is my mother and 
sister and brother." And shall any that call them- 
selves disciples of Jesus contract that answer to suit 
themselves ? If the Lord of All took into his em- 
brace, as a brother, every doer of his Father's will; 
shall we not be glad, and rejoice that we have such 
an example to do likewise? In the present divided 
condition of the visible Church, when sect contends 



108 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHUKCH AND 

with sect, and party with party, and peace seems so 
far off, must not every true follower of Christ, 
having in himself the mind of Christ, feel it a very 
precious consolation that wherever in the whole earth 
are those who under any name or form do believe in 
Jesus, with the heart, as their only and sufficient 
Saviour, there his brethren are, there are those who 
are members with himself, of the same body, com- 
municants with him in the same spiritual meat and 
the same spiritual drink, to be joined forever with 
him in the kingdom of God ? The more we are 
separated by denominational divisions, the more 
should we love to remember that whoever follows 
Christ, the same is our sister or brother. Oh ! for a 
great revival of this mind of Christ, in all that are 
called by his name. Oh ! that all reputed revivals 
of religion may shew their genuineness in the quick- 
ening and wider diffusion of that spirit. I bless 
God that I know something of its possession. I 
cannot allow the partition walls which man's in- 
firmities have built in the visible church, to separate 
my affections, as a christian, from any christian 
wherever he be. It is to me a precious thought that 
wherever my Lord has a disciple, I have a brother; 
that if a poor sinner, who has shared with me in the 
corruption and condemnation, has shared also with 
me in the regeneration and remission, by faith in 
Christ Jesus, then ; whatever he be, barbarian, 
Scythian, bond or free ; no matter how he may stand 
far off from me in sectional relations, separated by 



THE COHUXION OF SAINTS. 109 

partitions which, neither is willing to put away, he 
is united to me and I to him, as bone to bone, in the 
one mystical body of our common Lord and Life. 
We are heirs together "of God, and joint heirs with 
Christ." The present separation is for a day. The 
future fellowship, face to face, in the presence of our 
glorious Lord, seeing him as he is, will be for eter- 
nity. It doth, not yet appear what, as children of 
God now, we shall be hereafter, when the children 
shall come to the inheritance of the saints in light, 
"But this we know, that when our blessed Lord 
shall appear, we shall be like him. 11 And when we 
shall have been thus changed into the perfect like- 
ness of Christ, we shall have a perfect likeness, 
in every spiritual feature, to one another. Thus 
brother will come to brother, heart to heart, as face 
to face. Harmony of spirit, more sweet unspeakably 
than all harmonies of sound, pervading all that 
wondrous communion, so that not a thought shall 
be in discord, to all eternity ; harmony of all wills 
and all minds, not only with one another, but with 
God, in all his thoughts; harmony of holiness, of love, 
of adoration, ascending continually in thanksgiving 
and praise, from that vast congregation, and center- 
ing around the throne of God and the Lamb, praising 
the boundless grace that saved them and that set 
them in those heavenly places, in Christ Jesus; oh ! 
how will the whole Church be filled with that 
heavenly music ! Ah ! what a feeble conception do 
we get of that fellowship, that peace, that high, 



110 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH AND 

perfect social state of the people of God, from the 
present fellowship of christian brethren on earth. 

In conclusion : What is the great question, accor- 
ding to all we have now seen, in which all enquiry 
into one's spiritual state and hopes should terminate? 
Is it, Do I belong to the Church of Christ ? Yes, we 
answer, if you mean by the Church, that Church of 
which we have been writing, the house built only of 
living stones, made alive by union to Christ, wherein 
are none who have not been u sanctified in Christ 
Jesus." Membership there, is to be "in Christ 
Jesus" where " there is no condemnation." All are 
safe who are found in that Church, not however be- 
cause the Church saves them, but because as being 
thus in Christ, they are saved by the righteousness 
of its Head. But if you mean by Church } that 
visible form of the true Church under which are 
assembled the good and the bad, the wheat and the 
tare, the real and the counterfeit, and where the evi- 
dence of membership is the register of baptisms, and 
the evidence of communion is participation in that 
which is only the sacramental sign of inward ^nd 
spiritual communion; then, as all are not christians 
that are such outwardly, we must warn you against 
attempting to judge your spiritual state by any such 
enquiry. The great question is, — Am I in Christ 
Jesus ? To be in him, is to be in his Church. Not 
to be in him is not to be in his Church, no matter 
what Church ordinances may be ours. We enter 
his Church by coming unto him, as we enter a king- 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. Ill 

dom by union of allegiance to the king. We become 
members of that mystical body, by becoming united 
to Him, its head and life. How then will you know 
whether you are in him? Two passages of Scrip- 
ture have a most solemn connection here. u If any 
man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of 
his."** " Hereby know we that we dwell in him and 
he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit."f 
If we have not the Spirit of Christ, the question is 
settled at once. We are none of his. We are not 
entitled to be called by his name. We are only pro- 
fessedly and by external bands, connected with his 
Church. He will deny that we have any part in him, 
when he shall call his own sheep by name and lead 
them out to the living waters, in the future heritage 
of his people. Nothing can in the least change that 
decision. None of Christ s, if without his Spirit. Plead 
what else you may, baptized, confirmed, a communi- 
cant, an ordained minister, high in influence in the 
Church! It matters not. None of Christ's, then no part 
in his salvation; out of the Church of his true peo- 
ple, till you have his Spirit dwelling in you. But 
the other passage; "Hereby we know that we dwell 
in him and he in us, by his Spirit which he has given 
us" This precious possession is as conclusive as 
that awful destitution. This proof of being in Christ, 
is perfect. Only know that you have his Spirit, — 
the Holy Ghost, in your heart, leading, sanctifying 

* Rom. viii. 9. f 1 John iv. 13. 



112 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH AND 

your affections and life; then, whatever else you may 
not have, you have Christ. He is yours; you are his. 
Condemnation is taken from your soul ; the peace 
of God is attained; the great work whereby God 
makes us "meet to be partakers of the inheritance 
of the Saints in light" is going on in your heart. 
So that the remaining question is simply ; How 
may I know that I have the Spirit of Christ f We 
cannot enlarge. — But we say, enquire of the Scrip- 
tures what is the office of the Holy Ghost with 
us; what the Lord, when he promised to send him, 
said he would do in, and for, such as should receive 
him. Enquire what is the Spirit's work of Regenera- 
tion, when a sinner is "born again of the Holy 
Ghost ;" what his progressive work of Sanctification, 
by which the regenerate heart grows in grace ; what 
are the several "fruits of the Spirit," as manifested 
in the affections and life. Study such passages as 
the following : — " They that are after the Spirit, do 
mind the things of the Spirit"* Enquire into those 
" things of the Spirit ;" what they are, what it is to 
mind them, in opposition to minding "the things of 
the flesh." Take another passage. "As many as 
are led by the Spirit of God, they are the Sons of God."\ 
Study what the Scriptures embrace, as to your affec- 
tions, will, and walk, under the being "led by the 
Spirit of God. 11 Apply all to your own heart and 
life. Deal faithfully with your case. Pray for the 

* Rom. viii. 5. f Rom. viii. 14. 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 113 

Spirit to enlighten your mind in searching after evi- 
dences of his indwelling, or the contrary. " Lean not 
to your own understanding. 77 "Search me God 
and know my heart ; try me and know my thoughts; 
and see if there be any evil way in me and lead me 
in the way everlasting !" This is the prayer of 
safety, against all spiritual delusion, and all false 
hopes. He who makes God thus his trust for 
guidance, taking His word for the lamp of his 
feet, determining to cherish no hope that will 
not stand its light, and that cannot endure that 
prayer, he will find the salvation of God. He will 
be led to, and will be found in, Christ. God will 
direct his steps. His will be the "hope that maketh 
not ashamed." 

We cannot better conclude these pages than to 
copy the animated exhortation with which that great 
light of the Church of England, in the day of her 
great trial, Bishop Hall, concluded that remarkable 
treatise on " Christ Mystical ; or the blessed Union 
of Christ and his members." 

" My Son if ever thou look for sound comfort on 

earth, and salvation in heaven, unglue thyself from 

the world and the vanities of it ; put thyself upon 

thy Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ ; leave not till 

thou findest thyself firmly united to him, so that thou 

art become a limb of that body whereof he is head, 

a spouse of that husband, a branch of that stem, a 

stone laid upon that foundation ; look not therefore 

for any blessing out of him ; and in, and by, and 
H 






114 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH, ETC 

from him, look for all blessings ; let Hm be thy life 
and wish not to live longer than thou art quickened 
by him ; find him thy wisdom, righteousness, sanc- 
tification, redemption ; thy riches, thy strength, thy 
glory. Apply unto thyself all that thy Saviour is, 
or hath done. Wouldst thou have the grace of 
God's Spirit, fetch them from his anointing ; wouldst 
thou have power against spiritual enemies, fetch it 
from his sovereignty ; wouldst thou have redemp- 
tion, fetch it from his passion ; wouldst thou have 
freedom from the curse, fetch it from his cross; 
satisfaction, fetch it from his sacrifice; cleansing, 
fetch it from his blood; newness of life, fetch it from 
his resurrection ; right to heaven, fetch it from his 
purchase ; audience in all thy suits, fetch it from his 
session at the right hand of Majesty ; wouldst thou 
have all, fetch it from him who is ' one Lord, one 
God and Father of all, who is above all, through all, 
and in all.' " 



APPENDIX A. Page 31. 

If the views exhibited in this volume concerning 
the invisible Church, be true, the theory of the visi- 
ble Church being the depository of grace, &c, cannot 
stand. I will allude to one passage which is often 
used, as if there could be no doubt of its sustaining 
that theory. 

I refer to the first chapter of the Epistle to the 
Ephesians, and 23d verse. 

St Paul speaking of the Church, says, " which is 
his (Christ's) body, the fullness r * , w0 of him that 
filleth all in all" 

This passage is often treated, as if the Church 
were Christ's fullness, in the sense of being, corpo- 
rately, in possession of all the grace which Christ has 
purchased for his people, independently of his in- 
dwelling, by his Spirit, in the heart of each. It will 
be seen, from the following references, that such is 
in no sense the understanding of the passage by our 
old divines, and others. It will appear that the 
passage is understood as meaning that the Church is 
Christ's fullness, simply as the completion of Him, 
as head of the mystical body — his Church ; just as 

115 



116 APPENDIX. 

a king is relatively incomplete without a kingdom 
and tlms a kingdom is the fullness, or complement urn, 
of a king. 

Hooker on this very verse says, "It pleaseth 
Christ, in mercy, to account himself incomplete and 
maimed without us, and quoting the passage in the 
Latin, (Ecclesia complementum ejus qui implet omnia 
in omnibus?) says : " But most assured we are, that 
we all receive of his fullness, because he is in us as a 
moving and working cause. — Eccl. Pol. b. v. § 56, 
near end. 

Archbishop Usher comments on the same passage 
as follows : " As it hath pleased the Father, that in 
Him should all fullness dwell ; so the Son is pleased 
not to hold it any disparagement, that his body, the 
Church, should be accounted the fullness of Him that 
filleth all in all] that, howsoever, in himself, he is 
most absolutely, and perfectly, complete, yet is his 
Church, so nearly conjoined with him, that he hold- 
eth not himself full without it ; but, as long as any 
one member remaineth ungathered and unknit into 
this mystical body of his, he accounteth, in the 
meantime, somewhat to be deficient in himself." — 
Sermon before the King — in Usher's Answer to a 
Jesuit, p. 694. 

Beveridge gives the same. " The Church is so 
Christ's body that it is his (V^w*) His Fullness, 
that whereby he is full and complete, which other- 
wise he would not be, no more than a head is with- 
out a body. * * And therefore the Epistle here truly 



APPENDIX. 117 

calls the Church his fullness or complement B eve- 
ridge's Sermons, No. 82, vol, I. p. 385. 

There is a very important and solemn sense, in 
which each Christian may be a filled with all the full- 
ness of God." St. Paul prays for the Ephesian 
Christians — Eph. iii. 19 — that they " may be filled 
with all the fullness of God 11 — not "the fullness of 
the Godhead" as Christ, was and is ; but the full- 
ness of that sanctifying grace which God has pro- 
mised to his people, as the purchase of Christ 
in their behalf. But in this passage it is the in- 
dividual believer, and not any corporate body of be- 
lievers that is prayed for. The context shows that, 
as St. Paul prays for the Ephesians, individually, that 
Christ may dwell in their hearts, by faith; so he prays 
for the same individuals that they may be severally 
filled with the fullness of God. In one sense indeed, 
the Church may be spoken of in the same way, but 
only as it is the aggregate of all in whose hearts, as 
individual believers, Christ dwells by faith. 

The passages below from those great divines of the 
17th century, Dr. Jackson and Archbishop Usher, 
will show how giants in divinity of those days were 
wont to speak of union to Christ. 

" All that believe as Peter and the other Apostles 
did, or shall so believe, unto the world's end, are 
immediately laid on the same foundation stone, not 
one upon another; their union or annexation unto 
Christ is as immediate as Peter's was, and is or shall 
be as indissoluble as his was to Christ; albeit, their 



118 APPENDIX. 

growth be not so great, nor for quality so glorious. 
The description of this edifice, thus immediately 
erected upon the same stone, would be that of the 
poet, Grescit crescentibus illis. As the number of 
living stones which are laid upon the foundation 
stone increases, so the foundation or corner stone, 
which God did promise to lay in Zion, doth increase. 
As every particular living stone increaseth or grow- 
eth from a stone into a pillar of the house of God, 
unto a temple of God ; so this foundation stone, that 
is, Christ as a man, still groweth, still increaseth, 
not in himself, but in them. For they grow by his 
growth in them, or by diffusion of life from him into 
them. — Jackson's Works, vol. iii. b. ii. c. iv. § 22. 

"Our Apostle's words are express that all the 
building is fitly framed together in Christ, and so 
framed together, groweth up unto an holy temple in 
the Lord. He saith not, we are builded one upon 
another, but builded together in him for an habita- 
tion of God through the Spirit. The Spirit by 
which we are builded together in Christ, or through 
which we become the habitation of God, is not 
communicated and propagated unto us as from 
intermediate foundations or roots. We and all true 
believers receive the influence of the Spirit as im- 
mediately from Christ, or from God the Father and 
the Son, in the same manner as St. Peter did. — Ibid, 
c. v. § 6. 

"The mystery of our union to Christ (says Arch- 
bishop Usher) consisteth mainly in this ; that the 



APPENDIX. 119 

self same Spirit which, is in him, as in the head ; is so 
derived from him into everv one of his true mem- 
bers, that thereby they are animated and quickened 
to a spiritual life. * * * 

a The formal reason of the union of the members 
of our bodies consisteth not in the continuity of the 
parts, though that also be requisite to the unity of a 
natural body, but in the animation thereof by one 
and the same spirit. * * And even thus it is in 
Christ; although in regard of his corpora I presence, 
the heaven must receive him until the times of the 
restitution of all things ; yet he is here with us al- 
ways, even unto the end of the world, by the pre- 
sence of his Spirit. — Sermon before House of Com- 
mons. 



120 APPENDIX. 



APPENDIX B. Page 68. 

THE ANGLICAN FATHERS ON THE 
INVISIBLE CHURCH. 

ARCHBISHOP CRANMER. 

u I believe the holy Catholic Church ; that is to 
say, that ever there is found some company of men 
or some congregation of good people, which believe 
the Gospel and are saved. * * * For this word, 
Church, signifieth a company of men lightened with 
the Spirit of Christ, which do receive the gospel, 
&c. And this Christian Church is a communion of 
Saints, that is to say all that be of this communion, 
or company, be holy, and be one holy body under 
Christ their head. And this congregation receiveth 
of their head and Lord, all spiritual riches and gifts 
that pertain to the sanctification and making holy 
of the same body. And these ghostly treasures be 
common to the whole body, and to every member of 
the same. 11 



APPENDIX. 121 

Cranmers Catechism of 1548. Fathers of the Engl, 
Ch., pp. 235, 6. 

"But the holy Church is so unknown to the world 
that no man can descrie it, but God alone who only 
searcheth the hearts of all men, and knoweth his 
true children from others. 

"This Church" (the invisible) "is the pillar of 
truth, because it resteth in God's word ; * * but as 
for the open, known Church/ 7 (the visible) "and the 
outward face thereof, it is not the pillar of truth, 
otherwise than it is (as it were) a register, or trea- 
sury, to keep the books of God's holy will and testa- 
ment, and to rest only thereupon. * * For if the 
Church" (the visible) "proceed further, to make any 
new articles of the faith, besides the Scripture or con- 
trary to the Scripture, or direct not the form of life 
according to the same; then it is not the pillar of 
truth, nor the Church of Christ, but the synagogue 
of Satan, and the temple of Antichrist." 

"What wonder is it, that the open church (the 
visible) is now of late years fallen into many 
errors and corruptions, and the holy Church of 
Christ is secret and unknown, seeing that Satan, 
these five hundred years, hath been let loose and 
Antichrist reigneth, spoiling and devouring the 
simple flock of Christ. But as Almighty God 
said unto Elias, 'I have reserved unto myself 
seven thousand that have not bowed the knee 
unto Baal,' so it is at present. For though God 
hath suffered these five hundred years the open 



122 APPENDIX. 

face of his church, to be ugly, deformed and shame- 
fully defiled by the sects of the papists, yet hath 
Grod of his wonderful mercy ever preserved a good 
number, secret to himself, in his true religion, al- 
though Antichrist hath bathed himself in the blood 
of no small number of them." Cranmer's Answer 
to Smith's Works, (Parker's Soc. Ed.) vol. I. pp. 
377, 378. 

Bishop Eidley. 

" The name Churchj is taken in Scripture some- 
times for the whole multitude of them which profess 
the name of Christ, of the which they are also 
named Christians. But as St. Paul saith of the 
Jew, l Not every one is a Jew outwardly? &c. ( Neither 
yet all that be of Israel are counted of the seed? Even 
so, not every one which is a christian outwardly, is 
a christian indeed. For ' If any man have not the 
Spirit of Christ, the same is none of his.' Therefore, 
that Church, which is his body, of which Christ is 
the head, standeth only of living stones and true 
christians, not only outwardly in name and title, but 
inwardly in heart and in truth." 

Ridley's Works, (Parker Soc. Ed.) p. 126. 

Hookee. 

In the body of this work, we have quoted so often 
from Hooker that it can hardly be needful to add 
any further elucidation of his views. We must re- 
fer the Eeader to passages of great value and distinct- 
ness, from that high authority in chapter second. 



APPENDIX. 123 

William Perkins, D. D. 

This eminent English divine, of Christ's College, Cambridge, 
died 1602. His works have been translated into Latin, Dutch, 
Spanish, &c. He connects the age of the Reformers with that 
of the writers of the 17th century. 

" The number of believers, dispersed through the 
whole world, who are effectually called, and sancti- 
fied and preserved unto life everlasting * * for 
however in the Catholic Church there be two sorts 
of men professing religion, the one of them that do un- 
feignedly believe and are sanctified ; the other of 
them who make show of faith, but indeed believe 
not, but remain in their sins ; of the former doth the 
Catholic Church consist, and not of the latter, who 
are no members set into the head of this body, though 
they may seem to be. 

" This confuteih the Romish Church, who teach and 
hold that a reprobate may be a member of this Churc 7 >. 

" This Catholic Church is invisible, and cannot 
by the eye of flesh be discerned * * for who can 
infallibly determine the things that are within a 
man ? which again overthroweth that Eomish doc- 
trine which teaches that the Catholic Church is 
visible and apparent upon earth. Yet some parts 
are visible, as in the right use of words and sacra- 
ments appeareth. 

" This Catholic Church cannot utterly perish and 
be dissolved. All other congregations and particu- 
lar Churches being mixed may fail, yet this cannot 
be overcome." Works, Vol. III. p. 482. 



124 APPENDIX. 

"To this assembly and no other belong all the 
promises of this life and the life to come. It is the 
ground and pillar of truth ; that is, the doctrine of 
true religion is always safely kept and maintained 
in it. 

"In visible Churches are two sorts of men; just 
men and hypocrites, who although they be within 
the Church, yet the Church is not so called of them," 
(i. e. is not called the Church on account of them) 
" but in regard of them only who are truly joined 
unto Christ. 

" Adversaries hereof are Papists, who frame not 
the Church by these true properties, but by other 
deceitful marks, as succession, multitude, antiquity, 
consent." p. 504. 

Bishop Hall. 

11 The word Church is not more common than 
equivocal : whether ye consider it as the aggrega- 
tion of the outward, visible, particular Churches of 
Christian professors ; or as the inward, secret, uni- 
versal company of the Elect ; it is still one. 

" To begin with the former. What Church hath 
one Lord, Jesus Christ, the righteous, one Faith in 
that Lord, one Baptism with that Faith, it is the one 
Dove of Christ ; to speak more short, one Faith 
abridges all. But what is that one Faith? What 
but the main fundamental doctrine of religion neces- 
sary to be known, to be believed unto salvation. 



APPENDIX. 125 

"But if from particular visible Churches you shall 
turn your eyes to the true inward, universal company 
of God's elect and secret ones, there shall you more 
perfectly find one Dove ; for what the other is in pro- 
fession, this is in truth ; that one Baptism is here the 
true Laver of Regeneration ; that one Faith is a saving 
reposal upon Christ ; that one Lord is the Saviour 
of his body. No natural body is more one than this 
mystical ; one head rules it ; one Spirit animates it ; 
one set of joints moves it ; one food nourishes it ; 
one robe covers it. So it is one in itself, so one 
with Christ, as Christ is one with the Father : 
" That they may be one, even as we are one ; I in them 
and they in me." — John vii. 22. 

Bp. HalVs Sermon on the Beauty and Unity of the 
Church. 

" The whole church is the spiritual temple of God. 
Every believer is a living stone laid in those sacred 
walls. * * There is no place for any loose stone 
in God's edifice : the whole Church is one entire 
body. * * In case there happen to be differences in 
opinion concerning points not essential, not necessary 
to salvation ; this diversity may not breed any alien- 
ation of affection. * * 

" In the mean time, it highly concerns all that 
wish well to the sacred name of Christ, to labour to 
keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace ; 
Eph. iv. 3 : and to renew and continue the prayer 
of the Apostle for all the professors of Christianity 
— 'Now the God of patience and consolation grant 

11* 



126 APPENDIX. 

you to be like-minded one towards another, accord- 
ing to Christ Jesus : that ye may, with one mind and 
one mouth, glorify, God, even the Father of our 
Lord Jesus Christ.' " Eom. xv. 5, 6. 

Bp. HalVs Treatise of Christ Mystical, c. vii. § 2. 

"As there are two persons between whom this 
union is made, Christ and the believer ; so each of 
them concurs to the happy effecting of it : Christ by 
His Spirit diffused through the hearts of all the 
regenerate, giving life and activity to them ; the 
believer laying hold by faith upon Christ ; so work- 
ing in him ; and these do so react upon each other 
that from their mutual operation, results this gra- 
cious union whereof we treat. * * O the grace of faith 
justly represented to us by St. Paul, (Eph. vi. 16.) 
above all other graces incident unto the soul, as 
that, which if not alone, chiefly transacts all the 
main affairs tending to salvation. For faith is the 
quickening grace; Gal. ii. 20 — Eom. i. 17 : the di- 
recting grace ; 2 Cor. v. 7 : the protecting grace ; 
Eph. vi. 16 : the establishing grace ; Kom. xi. 20 — 
2 Cor. i. 24 : the justifying grace ; Eom. vi ; the 
sanctifying and purifying grace ; Acts xv. 9. Faith 
is the grace that assists to, apprehends, applies, 
appropriates Christ ; Heb. xi. 1 ; and hereupon the 
uniting gaace, and (which comprehends all) the saving 
grace." Christ Mystical, c. vi. 



APPENDIX. 127 



Bishop Taylor. 



" The Church is a company of men and women 
professing the saving doctrine of Jesus Christ. This 
is the Church 'in sensu forensif and in the sight of 
men, but because glorious things are spoken of the 
city of God, the professors of Christ's doctrine are 
but imperfectly and inchoatively the Church of God ; 
but they who are indeed holy and obedient to Christ's 
laws of faith and manners — these are truly and per- 
fectly ' the Church? * * These are the Church of 
God in the eyes and heart of God. For the Church 
of God are the body of Christ ; but the mere profes- 
sion of Christianity makes no man a member of Christ 
— nothing but a new creature, nothing but 'a faith 
working by love ;' and keeping the commandments 
of God. Now they that do this are not known to 
be such by men ; but they are known only to God ; 
and therefore it is in a true sense, ' the invisible 
Church ;' not that there are two churches, or two 
societies, in separation from each other. * * * No, 
these two churches, are but one society : the one 
is within the other — but yet though the men be 
visible, yet that quality and excellency by which 
they are constituted Christ's members, and distin- 
guished from mere professors and outsides of chris- 
tians, this, I say, is not visible. All that really and 
heartily serve Christ in aldito, do also profess to do 
so ; * * the invisible Church is ordinarily and requ- 



128 APPENDIX. 

larly part of the visible, but yet that only part that 
is the true one ; and the rest, but by denomination of 
law, and in common speaking, are the Church — not in 
mystical union, not in proper relation to Christ; they 
are not the House of God, not the temple of the Holy 
Ghost, not the members of Christ ; and no man can 
deny this. Hypocrites are not Christ's servants, and 
therefore not Christ's members, and therefore no part 
of the Church of God, but improperly and equivocally, 
as a dead man is a man ; all which is perfectly sum- 
med up in these words of St. Augustine, saying, 
that " the body of Christ is not ' bipartitum, 1 it is not 
a double body — ' all that are Christ's body, shall 
reign with Christ forever.' And therefore they who 
are of their father, the devil, are the synagogue of 
Satan, and of such is not the kingdom of God ; and 
all this is no more than St. Paul said : i They 
are not all Israel, who are of Israel,' and l He is not a 
Jew that is one outwardly, but he is a, Jew that is one 
inwardly? Now if any part will agree to call the 
universality of professors by the title of ' the Church? 
they may if they will ; any word by consent may sig- 
nify any thing ; but if by a Church we mean that 
society which is really joined to Christ, which hath 
received the Holy Ghost, which is heir of the pro- 
mises and of the good things of God, which is the 
body of which Christ is the head ; then the invisible 
part of the visible Church, that is, the true servants 
of Christ only, are the Church ; that is, to them only 
appertain the Spirit and the truth, the promises and 



APPENDIX. 129 

the graces, the privileges and advantages of the 
gospel ; to others, they appertain as the promise of 
pardon does ; that is when they have made themselves 
capable. The faithful only and obedient are beloved 
of God. Others may believe rightly ; but so do the 
devils, who are no parts of the church, but princes 
' ecclesia malignantium} and it will be a strange pro- 
position which affirms any one to be of the church, 
for no other reason but such as qualifies the devil to 
be so too. 

Bp. Taylor contends that the Article in the creed 
- — " Holy Catholic Church" and the next, " the Com- 
munion of Saints" refer to the same thing, and mean 
only what before he has defined as the invisible 
Church, viz. the society of the true followers of 
Christ. " If it be asked (he says) what is the 
Catholic Church ? — the Apostles' Creed defines it ; 
it is ' communio sanctoruin 1 — ' I believe in the Holy 
Catholic Church,' that is, 'the Communion of Saints,' 
the conjunction of all them who heartily serve God 
through Jesus Christ ; the one indeed is exegetical 
of the other, as that which is plainer is explicative 
of that which is less plain ; but else they are but 
the same thing : which appears also in this, that in 
some creeds the latter words are left out, and par- 
ticularly in the Constantinopolitan, as being under- 
stood to be in effect, but another expression of the 
same article. * * St. Augustine spends two chapters 
in affirming that only they who serve God faithfully 
are the Church of God) for this is in the good and 
I 



130 APPENDIX. 

faithful, and the holy servants of God, scattered 
every where, and combined by a spiritual union in 
the same communion of sacraments, whether they 
know one another by face or no. Others, it is cer- 
tain, are so said to be in the house of God, that they 
do not pertain to the structure of the house. * * * 
Those who are condemned by Christ (continues St. 
Augustine) for their evil and polluted consciences, 
are not in Christ's body which is the Church ; for 
Christ hath no damned members.' 

" But I need not be digging the cisterns for this 
truth — Christ himself hath taught it very plainly : 
* Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command 
you, not upon any other terms ; and I hope none but 
friends are members of Christ's mystical body, mem- 
bers of the Church whereof he is head. * * To be united 
to Christ, and to be members of his body ; these are 
the portions of saints, not of wicked persons, whether 
clergy or laity. * * As all the principles and graces 
of the gospel are the property of the godly, so they 
only are the Church of God of which glorious things 
are spoken, and it will be vain to talk of the infalli- 
bility of God's Church ; the Eoman doctors either 
must confess it subjected here, that is, in the Church 
in this sense, or they can find it no where. In 
short, this is the Church, (in the sense now explicited) 
which is c the pillar and ground of the truth f but this 
is not the sense of the Church of Rome" nor (we add) 
of those who are now endeavouring to bring us so 
near to Rome, but on the contrary is the sense 



APPENDIX. 131 

which their whole system, as much as that of Rome, 
requires them to oppose. Hence the necessity of 
.Keeping it distinct, and holding it fast. 

"The word 'church,' I grant, may, and is given 
to them by way of supposition and legal presump- 
tion, as a jury of twelve men are called l good men 
and true ' — that is, they are not known to be other- 
wise, and therefore presumed to be such ; and they 
are the church in all human accounts — that is, they 
are the congregation of all that profess the name of 
Christ, * * * in which are the wheat and the tares ; 
and they are bound up in common by the union of 
sacraments and external rites, name and profession, 
but by nothing else. This doctrine is well explica 
ted by St. Austin. 'Not only in eternity, but even 
now, hypocrites are not to be said to be with Christ, 
although they may seem to be of his church. But 
the Scripture speaks of them and these, as if they 
were both of one body, propter temporalem commix- 
tionem et communionem sacramentorum. They are 
only combined by a temporal mixture, and united 
by the common use of sacraments.' * * * So that 
which we call the church, is 'permixta ecclesia? and 
for this mixture's sake, under the cover and knot of 
external communion, the church — that is, all that 
company, is esteemed one body; and the appel- 
lations are made in common, and so are the ad- 
dresser, and offices and ministries. Therefore it is 
no wonder that we call this great mixture by the 
name of 'the church? but then since the church hath 



132 APPENDIX. 

a more sacred notion, as it is the spouse of Christ, 
his body, his temple, &e> * * therefore, although 
when we speak of all the acts and duties, of the 
judgments and nomenclatures, of outward appear- 
ances and accounts of law, we call the mixed society 
by the name of the Church ; yet when we consider 
it in the true, proper and primary meaning, * * all 
the promises of G od, the Spirit of God, the life of 
God, and all the good things of God, are peculiar to 
the Church of God, in God's sense, in the way in 
which he owns it, that is, as it is holy, united unto 
Christ, like to him, and partaker of the divine na- 
ture. The other are but a heap of men keeping good 
company, calling themselves by a good name, managing 
the external parts of union and ministry; but be- 
cause they otherwise belong not to God, the pro- 
mises no otherwise belong to them, but as they may, 
and when they do, return to God. Here then are 
two senses of the word ' Church ;' God's sense and 
man's sense ; the sense of religion, and the sense of 
government ; common rites, and spiritual union." 

Bp. Taylor's Dissuasive from Popery, Part II. B. 
I. Sect. I. 

Having laid his foundation in the position that 
none but the true servants of Christ make the true 
Church of Christ, and have title to the promises; 
and having observed that the Eomish church relies 
upon the church under another definition, Bishop 
Taylor proceeds : 

"Of the church, in the first sense, St. Paul af- 



APPENDIX. 133 

firms, it is u the pillar and ground of truth" He 
spake it of the church of Ephesus, or the holy cath- 
olic church over the world ; for there is the same 
reason of one and all ; if it be, as St. Paul calls it, 
"Ecclesia Dei vivi;" if it be united to the head, 
Christ Jesus, every church is as much the " pillar 
and ground of truth" as all the church ; which, that 
we may understand rightly, we are to consider that 
what is commonly called the "church," is but "do- 
mus ecclesia verae," as the "ecclesia vera" is 
"domus Dei :" it is the school of piety, the place of 
institution and discipline. Good and bad dwell 
here ; but God only, and his Spirit, dwell with the 
good. They are all taught in the church ; but the 
good only are "taught by God," by an infallible 
Spirit — that is, by a Spirit which neither can de- 
ceive, nor be deceived ; and therefore by. him the 
good, and they only, are led into all-saving truth ; 
and these are the men that preserve the truth in 
holiness. Without this society, the truth would be 
hidden, and held in unrighteousness, so that all good 
men, all particular congregations of good men, who, 
upon the foundation, Christ Jesus, build the super- 
structure of a holy life, are "the pillar and ground 
of truth ;" that is, they support and defend the truth 
— they follow and adorn the truth, which truth 
would in a little time be suppressed, or obscured, or 
varied, or concealed, and misinterpreted, if the 
wicked only had it in their conduct. That is, 
amongst good men we are most like to find the ways 



134 APPENDIX. 

of peace and truth, all saving truth, and tlie proper 
spiritual advantages and loveliness of truth. Now, 
then, this does no more relate to all churches, than 
to every church. God will no more leave or forsake 
any one of his faithful servants, than he will forsake 
all the world. And therefore here the notion of 
catholic is of no use: for the church is the com- 
munion of saints, wherever it be or may be ; and 
that this church is catholic, it does not mean by any 
distinct existence, but by comprehension and actual 
and potential enclosure of all communions of holy 
people l in the unity of the spirit, and in the bond 
of peace 7 — that is, both externally and internally. 
Externally means the common use of the symbols 
and sacraments, for they are the bond of peace ; but 
the unity of the Spirit is the peculiar of the saints, 
and is the internal confederation and conjunction of 
the members of Christ's body in themselves, and to 
their head. And by the energy of this state, where- 
ever it happens to be, all the blessings of the Spirit 
are entailed; every man hath his share in it; he 
shall never be left or forsaken ; and the spirit of God 
will never depart from him as long as he remains 
in, and is of, the communion of saints." 

Dissuasive from Popery, supra. 

Archbishop Usher. 

"What is meant here (in the Creed) by the Cath- 
olic Church ?" 

"That whole universal company of the elect 



APPENDIX. 135 

that ever were, are, or shall be gathered together in 
one body, knit together in one faith, under one head, 
Jesus Christ. For Grod, in all places, and of all 
sorts of men, had from the beginning, hath now, 
and ever will have, an holy church, which is there- 
fore called the catholic church — that is, God's whole 
or universal assembly, because it comprehendeth the 
multitude of all those that have, do, or shall believe 
unto the world's end. Part are already in heaven 
triumphant, part as yet militant here upon earth. 

" What is the Church militant ?" 

" It is the society of those that being scattered 
through all the corners of the world, are, by one 
faith in Christ, conjoined to him and fight under his 
banner against their enemies, the world, the flesh 
and the devil ; continuing in the service and warfare 
of their Lord, and expecting in due time, also, 
to be crowned with victory, and triumph in glory 
with Him. 

" Who are the true members of the church mili- 
tant on earth ?" 

" Those alone who, as living members of the mys- 
tical body, Bph. i. 22, 23 ; Col. i. 18, are, by the 
Spirit and Faith, secretly and inseparably conjoined 
unto Christ, their head — Col. iii. 3 ; Ps. lxxxiii. 3. 
In which respect, the true militant church is both 
invincible — Matt. xvi. 18 — and invisible — Eom. ii. 29; 
1 Pet. iii. 4. 

"Truly and properly none are of the church saving 
only they which truly believe and yield obedience*. 



136 APPENDIX. 

(1 John, 2, 19,) all which are also saved. Howbeit, 
God useth outward means with the inward for the 
gathering of his saints ; and calleth them as well to 
outward profession among themselves, as to inward 
fellowship with his Son ; (Acts ii. 42 ; Cant. i. 7,) 
whereby the church becometh visible. Hence it 
cometh, that so many as partaking the outward 
means, do join with these in league of visible pro- 
fession; (Acts viii. 13,) are therefore in human 
judgment accompted members of the true church and 
saints by calling; (1 Cor. i. 2,) until the Lord, who 
only knoweth who are his, do make known the con- 
trary, as we are taught in the parable of the tares, 
the draw net, &c : (Matt. xiii. 24, 47.) Thus many 
live in the church, as it is visible and outward, 
which are partakers only outwardly of grace ; and 
such are not fully of the church that have entered 
in but one step ; (Cant. iv. 7 ; Eph. v. 27 ; John ii. 
19.) That a man may be fully of the church, it is 
not sufficient that he profess Christ with his mouth, 
but it is further required that he believe in him in 
heart." Usher's Body of Divinity. 

De. Jackson. 

Of this truly eminent writer, President of Corpus 
Christi College, Oxford, in the early part of the 17th 
century, it will give weight in some minds, to the fol- 
lowing extracts, if we here quote the testimony of Dr. 
Pusey, who has called him " one of the best and 



APPENDIX. 137 

greatest minds the Church of England has nur- 
tured.'' 

14 All God's promises to the church principally be- 
long to the principal members of it, who are distinctly 
and individually known to Himself only — not so to 
us, to whom notwithstanding their persons are visible, 
their profession of faith is likewise visible. The sin- 
cerity of their hearts or faith, is, to us, invisible ; 
and therefore invisible it is to us whether they be 
live members of the Holy Catholic Church or no." 

Works b. 12.c. v.§ 2. 

"The visible church is a transcendent, and 
doth neither exclude the members of the holy church 
triumphant or militant, nor doth it consist only of 
them — but of them and of others called only by a 
mere external vocation. * * * The church mili- 
tant is visible to God and to the several members of 
it ; but what members of this visible and militant 
church be live members of the one holy and Catho- 
lic church, is known only to God or to men's pri- 
vate consciences," &c. 

" Though the church be sometimes, by good 
writers, entitled as well invisible as visible, we are 
not, from this opposition of words or terms, to con- 
ceit an opposition or distinction of churches, as if 
some were visible, others altogether invisible. Such 
as most use these terms, mean no more by them 
than we have said, to wit : What persons of the 
militant and visible church be true denizens of the 

heavenly Jerusalem f or city of Go i, is to us invisible 

12* 



138 APPENDIX. 

or unknown. I cannot say whether it were igno- 
rance or malice in the Romanists to construe these 
terms of visible and invisible, whilst they found them 
in some of our writers, as if they had constituted 
two contra-distinct, or opposite churches, when as 
it is plain that they are, for the most part, subordi- 
nate and co-incident. Ordinarily, the live members 
of the holy Catholic Church, or of that part of 
it which is to us invisible, are members of some 
visible church — but not e contra ; for neither all, 
nor most part of any visible church, in latter ages, 
are true and live-members of the holy and catholic 
church, part of which we believe to be here on 
earth, though it be to us invisible. * * * Many 
there be which are no members of the visible 
church, and yet better members of the true church 
than the members of the church- visible, for the pre- 
sent, are." — c. VII. § 5, 6. 

"This church, (the true, holy and catholic 
church,) is a true and real body, consisting of many 
parts, all really (though mystically and spiritually) 
united unto one head ; and by their real union with 
one head, all are truly and really united among 
themselves. Every one is so far a member of 
Christ's Church, as he is a member of Christ's body. 
He that is a true live-member of the one, is a true live- 
member of the other. He that is but an equivocal, 
analogical, hypocritical or painted member of the 
one, is but an equivocal, hypocritical, painted, or 
analogical member of the other." c. III. § 4. 



APPENDIX. 139 

"The Catholic Church, in the prime sense, con- 
sists only of such men as are actual and indissoluble 
members of Christ's mystical body, or of such as 
have the Catholic faith, not only sown in their brains 
or understandings, but thoroughly rooted in their 
hearts. In a secondary, analogical sense, every 
present, visible church, which holdeth the holy 
Catholic faith, without which no man can be saved, 
pure and undefiled with the traditions and inventions 
of man, may be termed a holy Catholic Church. 
When we say a man may be a visible member 
of the holy Catholic Church, and yet no actual mem- 
ber of any present visible church, we take the 
Catholic Church in the latter or secondary sense. 
Who are indissoluble members of Christ's bodv, is 
only visible or known to Him. Many thousands are, 
and have been, true members of it, which are, and 
have been, altogether invisible to us. But who they 
be that possess the unity of that faith which the 
Apostles taught, and without which no man can be 
saved, is visible and known to all such as either hear 
them profess it viva voce, or can read and understand 
their profession of it given in writing." — c. XVII. § 1. 

Dr. Jackson's Treatise on the Church is part of a 
great work, on the Apostles' Creed. The Eev. Mr. 
Goode, of London, has revived attention to it, be- 
cause of its decided opposition to those views of the 
church which the Tractarian writings have re-pro- 
duced out of what were once considered, among us, 
the worn-out errors of Eomanism. From the edition 



140 APPENDIX. 

by Mr. Goode, a re-print was made in this country 
a few years ago by Mr. Hooker of Philadelphia. I 
cannot abstain from earnestly recommending that 
little book to the study of all who wish to know 
what is the Holy Catholic Church and Communion 
of Saints, in which they profess to believe. 

The account given by the great Dr. Isaac Barrow, 
of the Visible and Invisible Church, in his " Dis- 
course on the Unity of the Church," agrees perfectly 
with the above. I shall quote from vol. vi. of the 
Oxford edition of his works, 1818. 

He defines the one as "the society of those who 
profess the faith and gospel of Christ, and undertake 
the evangelical covenant in distinction to all other 
religions." 

The other he defines as "the whole body of God's 
people that is, ever hath been, or ever shall be, from 
the beginning of the world, to the consummation 
thereof, who having (formally or virtually) believed 
in Christ, and sincerely obeyed God's laws, shall 
finally, by the meritorious performances and suffer- 
ings of Christ, be saved." — p. 497. 

The latter he calls "the Catholic society of true be- 
lievers and faithful servants of Christ" the " true uni- 
versal church, called the church mystical and invisible" 
—pp. 497 and 500. 

To this invisible church, composed only of such 
as shall finally be saved, belong, he says, " all the 
glorious titles and excellent privileges attributed to 
the church in holy Scripture." " This is the body 



APPENDIX. 141 

of Christ," "the spouse of Christ/' "the house of God 
built on a rock, against which the gates of hell shall 
not prevail" "this is the elect generation," &c. 

"'To this church, belongs peculiarly that unity 
which is often attributed to the church." 

" This is that one body into which we are all bap- 
tized by one Spirit ; the members whereof do hold a 
mutual sympathy and complacence ; which is joined 
to one head, deriving sense and motion from it ; 
which is enlivened and moved by one Spirit." 

" This is the society of those for whom Christ did 
pray that they might be all one" — pp. 497, '8, '9. 

The essential unity of this invisible, catholic 
church, to which only belong the promises of God, 
according to the above, is thus described : 

"All christians are united by spiritual cognation 
and alliance, as being all regenerated by the same in- 
corruptible seed, being alike born, not of blood nor of the 
will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God, 
whence, as the sons of God, and brethren of Christ, 
they become brethren one to another. * * 

" The whole christian church is one by its incor- 
poration into the mystical body of Christ, or as fel- 
low-subjects of that spiritual, heavenly kingdom, 
whereof Christ is the sovereign head and governor ; 
whence they are governed by the same laws, are 
obliged by the same institutions and functions ; they 
partake of the same privileges, and are entitled to 
the same promises, and encouraged by the same re- 
wards. So they make one spiritual corporation or 



142 APPENDIX. 

republic, whereof Christ is the sovereign Lord." 
—p. 507. 

Then in what sense the Visible church may be 
be considered as partaking in the titles, privileges, 
&c, which belong of right to the invisible only, Dr. 
Barrow thus teaches : 

" The places of Scripture which do represent the 
church one, as unquestionably they belong (in their 
principal notion and intent) to the true Universal 
Church, (called the church mystical and invisible;) 
so may they by analogy and participation, be under- 
stood to concern the visible church-Catholic here on 
earth, which professeth faith in Christ and obedi- 
ence to his laws." — p. 501. For because the visible 
church doth enfold the other, (as one mass doth 
contain the good ore and base alloy, as one floor 
the corn and the chaflQ * * * because, therefore, 
presumptively, every member of this doth pass 
for a member of the other, the time of distinction 
and separation being not yet come: * * 
therefore commonly the titles and attributes of 
the one are imparted to the other. All (saith 
St. Paul,) are not Israel who are of Israel; nor 
is he a lew that is one outwardly ; yet in regard to 
the conjunction of the rest with the faithful Israelites, 
because of external consent in the same profession, 
and conspiring in the same services, all the congre- 
gation of Israel is styled a holy nation and peculiar 
people." 

11 So likewise do the Apostles speak to all members 



APPENDIX. 143 

of the church, (visible) as to elect and holy persons, 
unto whom all the privileges of Christianity do 
belong, although really hypocrites and bad men do 
not belong to the church, nor are concerned in its unity, 
as St. Austin doth often teach." — pp. 499, 500. 

The places of St. Austin, which Barrow cites 
and makes his own, are such as these : Non ad earn 
pertinent avari, raptores, fcenatores. Videntur esse in 
Ecclesia, non sunt, Ecclesiam veram intelligere non 
audeo, nisi in Sanctis et justis. Multi sunt in sacra- 
mentorum communione cum Ecclesia, et tamen jam non 
sunt in Ecclesia. " The covetous, &c, do not belong 
to the church. They seem to be in it but are not. I 
dare not understand the true church to be but among 
the holy and righteous men." — " There are many 
who communicate in sacraments with the church, and 
yet they are not in the church." — p. 500. 



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